A federal judge declined to toss a defamation lawsuit against President Trump over his remarks last year about five Black and Hispanic men wrongly convicted of a 1989 rape, dubbed the Central Park Five.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone on Thursday ruled the lawsuit, which stems from Trump’s remarks about the men at a 2024 presidential debate, can move forward. She said Trump’s commentary can be “‘objectively determined’ to be false,” as reason for the challenge to continue.
However, she did dismiss a claim contending the president intentionally caused the men emotional distress.
The Central Park Five — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — were teenagers when they were wrongfully convicted of the 1989 rape and assault of a white woman jogging in New York City’s Central Park. They spent years in prison before the true culprit confessed, backed by DNA evidence, resulting in their 2002 exoneration.
The attorney general, Pam Bondi, professed ignorance of reports of immigration officials hiding their faces with...
