A member of the “Exonerated Five” shared an image on social media that mimicked Donald Trump’s full-page ad against them after the former president was arraigned Tuesday for dozens of criminal charges.
“Over 30 years ago, Donald Trump took out full-page ads calling for my execution,” Yusef Salaam, a New York City Council candidate, tweeted Tuesday. “On the day he was arrested and arraigned, here is my ad in response.”
Salaam explained how his wrongful conviction, involvement with the legal system, and Trump’s advertisements and television appearances impacted his life.
“Now, after several decades and an unfortunate and disastrous presidency, we all know exactly who Donald J. Trump is — a man who seeks to deny justice and fairness for others while claiming only innocence for himself,” Salaam shared after Trump plead not guilty to 34 felony counts in connection with hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
In 1989, Salaam was one of five Black and Latino teens wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting a white woman in New York’s Central Park. Trump purchased a full-page ad in The New York Times at the time, urging the state to impose the death sentence in the case on the group then known as “The Central Park Five.”
Despite the fact that Salaam and four others — Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Antron McCray — were exonerated in 2002, as well as DNA evidence identifying the real attacker, Trump never apologized.
“You have people on both sides of that,” Trump said in 2019. “They admitted their guilt.”
Last week, when the news of Trump’s indictment was announced, Salaam responded with one word: “karma.”
In his open letter posted on Tuesday, Salaam went on to say of Trump’s deeds, “You were wrong then, and you are wrong now.” He also stated that he will not “resort to hatred, bias, or racism” and desires Trump “no harm.”
“Rather, I am putting my faith in the judicial system to seek out the truth,” he wrote. “I hope that you exercise your civil liberties to the fullest and that you get what the Exonerated Five did not get — a presumption of innocence and a fair trial.”