Exonerated Central Park 5 member Yusef Salaam responds to Trump charges with campaign ad

Yusef Salaam, one of the five men exonerated in the Central Park Five case, released a digital campaign ad on social media against former President Donald Trump, more than 30 years after Trump called for the teens’ execution in a series of print ads.

Leading with a bold headline, “Bring back justice & fairness. Build a brighter future for Harlem!,” Salaam, who is running to represent central Harlem on the New York City Council, tweeted his response Tuesday evening to Trump’s historic indictment on 34 counts and arraignment.

“After several decades and an unfortunate and disastrous presidency, we all know who exactly Donald J. Trump is — a man who seeks to deny justice and fairness for others, while claiming only innocence for himself.”

Yahoo News reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment.

Trump, the first former president in history to face criminal charges, pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records at an appearance in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team of prosecutors upgraded what would typically be classed as misdemeanors to Class E felonies, on the grounds that the documents were intended to hide state and federal election law crimes, and possibly to evade state tax law.

On April 30, 1989, Trump, then a brash and influential real estate mogul, took out a reported $85,000 worth of ads in four New York newspapers with the headline: "Bring back the death penalty, bring back our police!” regarding the case of the Central Park Five — Kevin Richardson, 14, Raymond Santana, 14, Antron McCray, 15, Korey Wise, 16, and Salaam, 15 — who had been wrongfully accused of raping and assaulting a white female jogger in New York City's Central Park.

"I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them," Trump wrote in the ad.

After they spent years in prison, the convictions of the now “Exonerated Five” were eventually vacated in 2002, following DNA evidence and a confession from a man named Matias Reyes, which affirmed that they had been wrongfully convicted of various crimes.

Salaam’s ad follows a one-word statement, “Karma,” issued by his campaign last Thursday when news broke of Trump’s indictment. In Tuesday’s response, Salaam reflected on living with trauma due to “systemic oppression imposed by the injustice system.”

“Being wrongfully convicted as a teenager was an experience that changed my life drastically,” he wrote in the ad. “But the problem our community faced when my name was splashed across the newspaper a generation ago — inadequate housing, underfunded schools, public safety concerns, and a lack of good jobs — became worse during Trump’s time in office.

“Here is my message to you, Mr Trump: In response to the multiple federal and state criminal investigations that you are facing, you responded by warning of ‘potential death and destruction,’ and by posting a photograph of yourself with a baseball bat, next to a photo of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg,” the ad continued.

“These actions, just like your actions leading up to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, are an attack on our safety. Thirty-four years ago, your full-page ad stated, in all caps: CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS. You were wrong then and you are wrong now.”

Salaam extended some grace to Trump at the end of his ad, writing that he hopes the former president gets what the Exonerated Five did not receive, a “presumption of innocence” and a fair trial. He added a rider in case the former president is found guilty.

“And if the charges are proven and you are found guilty," he wrote, "I hope that you endure whatever penalties are imposed with the same strength and dignity that the Exonerated Five showed as we served our punishment for a crime we did not commit.”

Correction: This story was updated to correct an error about an ad released from Yusef Salaam's campaign. The ad was released in digital format on social media, not taken out in the New York Times newspaper.