A federal judge has denied Trump’s request to toss out a defamation lawsuit filed by the Exonerated Five, bringing the decades-long controversy between Trump and the group of wrongfully convicted men one step closer to a courtroom showdown.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone ruled Thursday that the lawsuit—filed by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, and Korey Wise—can proceed, based on comments Trump made during a 2024 presidential debate with then-opponent Kamala Harris.
The case hinges on Trump’s continued claims that the men were guilty, despite being exonerated in 2002 after another man confessed to the 1989 assault of a jogger in Central Park. At the time of the incident, Trump famously took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the return of the death penalty, a move widely seen as targeting the then-teenagers.
During last year’s debate, Harris referenced the ads, prompting Trump to say: “They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately.” Judge Beetlestone ruled it’s “plausibly inferred” that Trump knew the men had been exonerated and still chose to spread misinformation.
While the court rejected Trump’s bid to dismiss the defamation claim, it did toss two parts of the suit, including claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and one additional defamation theory. The plaintiffs had not shown evidence of physical harm or sufficiently established malicious intent for those claims, the judge said.
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