The Root; Published By: Candace McDuffie
Exonerated Central Park 5 member Yusef Salaam, who called Donald Trump’s legal woes “karma,” took out a full-page ad in The New York Times addressing the former president. The move comes after President Trump was arraigned Tuesday on 34 felony counts stemming from hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
In 1989, Salaam was one of five Black and Latino teens wrongly convicted of sexually assaulting a white woman jogger in Central Park. As a response, Trump bought a full-page ad in The New York Times demanding the group be executed. “I want to hate these murderers and I always will,” Trump wrote in the ad. “I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them.”
Salaam, who is currently a candidate for New York City Council, tweeted: “Over 30 years ago, Donald Trump took out full page ads calling for my execution. On the day he was arrested and arraigned, here is my ad in response.” In the letter, he detailed the harrowing experience, how damaged the legal system is and the ways in which the conviction changed his life. Salaam also called Trump out on his dangerous tenure in the White House: Read more
