Trump must face defamation lawsuit from Central Park Five defendants

US President Donald Trump has failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing him of making defamatory statements about five black and Hispanic men who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York's Central Park.

Philadelphia-based US district judge Wendy Beetlestone ruled on Thursday that the men had presented enough evidence to pursue their lawsuit accusing Trump of defaming them in comments he made during the 2024 presidential campaign. The judge narrowed the lawsuit, however, by dismissing a claim by the plaintiffs of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court last October by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called the Central Park Five. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms and punitive damages.

Shanin Specter, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, on Thursday welcomed the judge's ruling and said he and his clients “look forward to discovery, trial and the ultimate vindication of these five fine men”.

Karin Sweigart, a lawyer representing Trump in the lawsuit, said: “The baseless lawsuit is yet another unfounded and meritless attack against president Trump.”

Sweigart called the narrowing of the lawsuit a victory for the Republican president.

The White House declined to comment.

The men were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and another person's confession.

Trump falsely said during a September 10 presidential debate with Democrat Kamala Harris the men had killed someone and pleaded guilty, the plaintiffs said in their October lawsuit. Attorneys for the men said they gave false confessions they later recanted. They never pleaded guilty.

The lawsuit said Trump's “demonstrably false” statements cast the plaintiffs in “a harmful false light”.

In seeking dismissal of the lawsuit, Trump's lawyers said in a court filing in December  his statements about the men were legally protected expressions of opinion under the US constitution's first amendment. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Beetlestone said Trump's statement at issue “must be construed as one of fact, not opinion,” because it can “objectively determined” to be false that the men pleaded guilty or killed someone.

Trump has drawn criticism before over his statements about the Central Park Five. After a 28-year-old woman was attacked in the incident, Trump spoke out about the case and took out a full-page advertisement in several New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

Reuters