Donald Trump Dealt Legal Blow by Judge in Defamation Lawsuit

A federal judge in Pennsylvania has denied President Donald Trump's request to dismiss a defamation suit brought against him by the men known as the Central Park Five.

Why It Matters

Five men—Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray and Korey Wise—made national headlines in 1989 when they were accused of raping Trisha Meili while she was jogging in Central Park, earning them the nickname the Central Park Five. All five men went to prison for the crime but later were exonerated.

Trump famously took out a full-page ad in the New York Daily News to "bring back the death penalty" in response to crimes such as these while never naming the five men in the ad.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump maintained the men were guilty because "they admitted they were guilty" and "the police doing the original investigation say they were guilty."

What To Know

Trump in a debate with then-Vice President Kamala Harris discussed the Central Park Five as a past grievance that Harris tried to weaponize during the campaign, saying: "They come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five."

He then proceeded to say the five men "admitted—they said, they pled guilty, and I said, well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty—then they pled we're not guilty."

The men never pled guilty at their trials, and the victim in the case survived.

In a 20-page judgment issued Thursday morning, Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ordered that the case proceed, having determined that Trump's statements "can be 'objectively determined' to be false, so Defendant's [Trump's] statement must be construed as one of fact, not opinion."

"The Defendant, in his briefs, urges the Court to contextualize the statement as a response to Harris's statement sixty seconds before and to interpret the statement as his recollections of why he placed the 1989 ad," Beetlestone wrote. "Before addressing that point, however, as an initial matter it is necessary to determine exactly on what portions of the statement Plaintiffs premise their claims."

"Given that Defendant's communications were reasonably capable of conveying the
particular meaning ascribed to them by the plaintiff, the next question is 'whether that meaning is defamatory in character,'" she later wrote in her decision.

While Beetlestone wrote that "Because Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged actual malice, Defendant's Motion to Dismiss shall be denied as to Plaintiffs' false light claim," she also dismissed additional claims of "severe emotional distress and reputation damage."

What Happens Next

The case will move forward, but with the narrowed focus only on the defamation element and not the wider potential emotional or reputational damage the men faced.

Update 4/10/25, 1:20 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information and context.