In this combined photo, clockwise from top left, are Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Korey Wise and Kevin Richardson, better known as the Central Park Five.

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Former President Donald Trump again defended his actions in the late 1980s surrounding the Central Park Five (also known as the Exonerated Five) case during the presidential debate in New York on Tuesday night.

After the brutal attack on a jogger in New York’s Central Park in 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in major newspapers in the city calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty for those responsible, further inflaming racial tensions in the city.

Five black and Hispanic teenage boys were falsely accused and spent years in prison before being exonerated based on DNA and the confession of a convicted rapist and murderer.

But on Tuesday night, Trump said the five black and Hispanic teens wrongly accused of the crime ultimately “seriously injured and killed someone.” The victim in the case is alive but dealing with lingering health effects from her attack.

It was not the first time in recent years that Trump falsely claimed the men were responsible for the attack.

Read on to learn more about the case that is back in the news.

What happened in April 1989?

In 1989, Trisha Meili was a 28-year-old investment banker jogging in Central Park when she was brutally beaten and raped. After the violent attack, Meili fell into a coma for nearly two weeks and had no memory of the attack.

New York City was experiencing high violent crime rates at the time, and the case was widely covered in the media. On the same night Meili was attacked, witnesses told the media and police that groups of teenage boys attacked passersby and other joggers, robbing and beating them.

Police have arrested a group of black and Hispanic teenage boys — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam — and subjected them to intensive interrogations.

“The boys were dubbed the ‘Wolf Pack’ and quickly became symbols of the criminal menace that white New Yorkers believed gripped their city,” Poynter told the media at the time.

Trump jumped on the media circus of the time and bought his full-page ad in the New York Times and other major city newspapers.

What happened after their arrest?

McCray, Richardson, Santana, Wise and Salaam broke down after hours of questioning and videotaped what they had said. The boys eventually retracted these statements, saying they had been coerced.

“When we were arrested, the police deprived us of food, drink or sleep for more than 24 hours,” Salaam wrote in the Washington Post in 2016. “We made a false confession under duress.”

The five pleaded not guilty, but were nevertheless imprisoned and sentenced to several years in prison.

Salaam wrote in that 2016 article: “Although we were innocent, we spent our formative years in prison, branded as rapists.”

This case is often used by juvenile justice experts as an example of the vulnerability of children and teens who come into contact with the criminal justice system. Their brains are not fully developed, and research shows that juveniles are more likely than adults to confess to crimes they did not commit.

The case has also been used repeatedly as evidence of a criminal justice system that is biased against people of color.

It wasn’t until 2002 that the five men were exonerated after convicted rapist and murderer Matias Reyes confessed to the crime. Reyes’ DNA matched the sample found on Meili.

After their convictions were overturned, the five men received a multimillion-dollar settlement from New York City.

The Central Park Five joined Reverend Al Sharpton at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

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Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Trump has repeatedly held to the false belief that the men are guilty

Trump has never apologized for running the full-page ad (which did not explicitly name the five men) and decades later continues to claim they were responsible for the attack.

Salaam wrote in his article that when Trump was asked about the case during the 2016 presidential election, he said, “They admitted they were guilty.” And in a statement to CNN at the time, Trump also said, “The law enforcement that did the original investigation says they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous.”

Salaam said Trump’s claims are harmful and cause fear and stress.

“In some ways, it feels like I’m on trial all over again. I know what it’s like to be a young black man without a voice — like Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, who were murdered and then crucified in the press. Even though the Central Park Five were found innocent in a court of law, we are still guilty in the eyes of many,” Salaam wrote. “That comes with a certain kind of stress.”

Three years later, in 2019, Trump said again, “You have people on both sides of that story. They have admitted their guilt,” the New York Times reported. “If you look at some of the prosecutors, they say the city should never have settled that case — so we’ll leave it at that.”

Trump incorrectly said, when asked during the debate, that the Central Park Five ultimately “seriously injured someone, killed someone.”

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Salaam, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention along with three other members of the Exonerated Five and is now a New York City councilman, was in the spin room after the debate, where he came face to face with Trump. The former president appeared to be confused about who Salaam was when reporters asked him if he would apologize.

The Independent reported on the incident, saying that Trump “grinned and pointed at (Salaam) and joked, ‘That’s good, you’re on my side!'”

According to the outlet, Salaam appeared taken aback — he was in the room to support Vice President Kamala Harris — and said, “No, no, I’m not on your side!” before Trump walked away.