‘Central Park 5’ member ‘absolutely’ considering suing Trump
As Donald Trump has spent the last week doubling down on his defense of past conduct and comments toward women, he is also doubling down on a strong stance he took during a decades-old crime in New York that divided the city to its core.
In 1989, the nation was gripped by the story of five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were convicted of raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. They were later exonerated. Trump took out an ad in four major papers at the time calling for the death penalty to be reinstated with regard to this case.
“They admitted they were guilty,” Trump wrote last week in a statement to CNN’s Miguel Marquez. “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.”
Now, in an interview with Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga, one of the “Central Park Five” says that he is “absolutely” considering suing Donald Trump for recent comments he made about the case.
Speaking to Yusef Salaam, who was 15 when the crime occurred in 1989, Golodryga said, “There’s concrete evidence, in the form of DNA, that proves that you, in fact, and the four others, were not the perpetrators of this crime. That evidence is known. Donald Trump knows that it exists as well. Given that, and given what he just said a few days ago, years after that DNA evidence was proven, do you plan on suing him?”
“You know, we definitely — if our lawyers move forward and tell us that we can do that, then that is exactly the option that we will take. The great thing about today is that the statute of limitations has not expired. And if we have the opportunity do to just that, we will absolutely do that,” Salaam said.
In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Salaam wrote that he fears for his life in the wake of Trump’s most recent comments about the case. “When I heard Trump’s latest proclamation, it was the worst feeling in the world. I couldn’t breathe. … I am overwhelmed with fear that an overzealous Trump supporter might take matters into his or her hands. … Like a soldier always on high alert, I can never enjoy myself fully, with all the adrenaline that comes with that. It’s a scary feeling.”
Golodryga asked Salaam how real his fear of physical danger is.
“I’m absolutely worried,” Salaam said, sighing. He pointed to physical violence that has occurred at Trump’s rallies and that even his ardent supporters have been on the receiving end of.
“These people, some of them, have been punched, beat, dragged out on stretchers — I mean, these are the supporters. So if you have Donald Trump making statements like this, that he still believes we’re guilty … They’re so enamored by this man that any one of them, at any point in time, could probably think to themselves, ‘You know what, let me do Donald Trump a favor, because I so believe in this man — that he wasn’t able to get these guys killed back in 1989, I think we could try to do this today.’ That’s a very, very real fear that I have.”
Salaam said that he has received threats on Twitter and even got an erroneous alert on his phone saying that someone with his name had been shot dead on his home steps. “When I saw that, a chill ran down my spine,” he told Golodryga. “It was almost as if I’m looking at something now that is predicting what’s going to happen in the future. It’s a very, very scary place to be.”
Golodryga asked Salaam what he would say to Trump if given the opportunity. “He’s already said that if he doesn’t win you’ll never see him again. I think that he should leave us all alone. Do us all a favor. We don’t want to go backwards in time. We want to move forward as a people.”
