Judge rejects Trump’s bid to toss Central Park Five lawsuit

A federal judge on Friday dealt another blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to throw out a defamation lawsuit against him filed by plaintiffs formerly known as the Central Park Five.

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone said that Pennsylvania’s Anti-SLAPP law, designed to protect defendants from lawsuits targeting protected speech, does not apply in federal court, rejecting Trump’s motion to dismiss the case.

“The only issue before the Court is whether Plaintiffs’ claims for defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”) can survive given Pennsylvania’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, otherwise known as its Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation Statute,” Beetlestone wrote in a 13-page filing.

“Pennsylvania’s Anti-SLAPP Statute (a state law) does not apply here, in federal court,” she wrote in the filing, adding: “Accordingly, Defendant’s Motion shall be denied.”

Five men who as teenagers were wrongfully convicted in the so-called Central Park Five jogger rape case sued Trump in October, accusing the then-Republican presidential nominee of defaming them.

They cited a number of statements Trump made during his Sept. 10 presidential debate against former Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing him of falsely stating that the men killed somebody and pled guilty to the crime.

“These statements are demonstrably false,” they wrote in their filing against Trump.

The five men — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray and Korey Wise — spent years in prison for the rape and assault of a white female jogger, a crime they were later exonerated of and did not commit.

Trump has tried to dismiss the defamation lawsuit against him, but has not been successful.

Judge Beetlestone in April also threw out Trump’s motion to dismiss the case against him in a different filing.