The five men who make up the Central Park Five, and now call themselves the Exonerated Five, have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over his comments during last month’s presidential debate.

The lawsuit focuses on the September 10 debate in Pennsylvania, where Trump said the five men — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — pleaded guilty when they were tried in connection with the assault and rape of a woman who had been running in Central Park on April 19, 1989 and that the victim had died.

During the debate he said: ‘They admitted – they said they were pleading guilty. And I said, if they plead guilty, they hurt someone badly and ultimately killed someone. And if they pled guilty – they pled for us.” am not guilty.”

At the time of the trials, all had pleaded not guilty and the victim of the attack survived.

The complaint said Trump’s statements are “demonstrably false,” adding: “Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, the victims of the Central Park attacks were not killed.” The complaint further stated that the men, now in my fifties, have “suffered injuries as a result of Defendant Trump’s false and defamatory statements.”

The five, who were teenagers when charged, had maintained their innocence throughout their trials and incarceration. In their lawsuit, they were accused of assaulting the female jogger and other assaults and robberies that occurred in Central Park.

The five spent years behind bars before being acquitted in 2002 DNA evidence linked another man, a serial rapist, to the attack. The city ultimately agreed in a legal settlement to pay the acquitted men $41 million.

The case subsequently came under heavy scrutiny as the five claimed they had been intimidated and coerced into making false confessions.

The case came at a time of heightened racial tensions and when crime dominated headlines. Trump, then a real estate magnate, had placed large advertisements in the newspapers calling on New York to reinstate the death penalty.

The defamation suit was filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The complaint noted that Salaam, a member of the New York City Council representing District Nine, attended the debate and was in the room when Trump made these statements.

The five men did not ask for a specific amount of damages, but asked for a trial to determine damages.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Monday: “This is just another frivolous election interference lawsuit filed by desperate left-wing activists in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris’ dangerously liberal agenda and failing campaign. ”

Shanin Specter, an attorney for the five, said Monday: “Unfortunately, the civil justice system does not allow us to require Mr. Trump to apologize or retract his statement. The most we can obtain is monetary damages, both to compensate these five men for the damage Mr. Trump has done to their reputations and to punish Mr. Trump for making these statements.”

While he said it would be “helpful” if Trump apologized or retracted his statements, he said, “We’re not holding our breath on that.”