Members of the “Central Park Five” filed a defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump on Monday, accusing him of making “false, misleading and defamatory” statements about their 1989 case during the Sept. 10 ABC News presidential debate, according to a new report to have disseminated court documents.

Attorneys for the five men — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise — filed their civil lawsuit against Trump in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking damages because of his statements, which they say caused them “severe emotional distress and reputational damage.”

The five men, then teenagers, were accused of violently raping a jogger in Central Park in April 1989. The five, who always maintained their innocence, were convicted and served years in prison. A decade after the attack, another man confessed to the crime, which was confirmed by DNA analysis.

During the debate, Trump responded to a statement from Vice President Kamala Harris revisiting his full-page ad in the New York Times following the incident calling for the execution of the Central Park Five when he said the following: ” (T)hey come up with things like what she just said many, many years ago when many people, including Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg, agreed with me about the Central Park Five. They admitted – they said, they pleaded.” And I said that if they pleaded guilty, they would seriously injure a person, ultimately kill him. And when they pleaded guilty, they maintained that we were not guilty.

The lawsuit points out that Trump's statements were false in several ways: None of the members of the Central Park Five ever pleaded guilty in the case, none of the victims of the Central Park attacks were killed, and the then-mayor was not one of the attacks was Ed Koch – who disagreed with Trump's position in the full-page ad.

“Defendant Trump’s conduct at the September 10 debate was extreme and outrageous and should cause plaintiffs severe emotional distress,” the lawsuit states.

Trump's lawyers had not yet responded to the court filing as of Monday morning.

“This is just another frivolous election interference lawsuit filed by desperate left-wing activists,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said in response to an inquiry about the lawsuit.

According to court documents, one of the Central Park Five members, Salaam, was actually present at the debate and attempted to confront Trump about his statements in the spin room afterward.

Salaam says he repeatedly shouted questions at Trump, saying, “Are you going to apologize to the Exonerated Five?” and, “Sir, what do you say to a member of the Central Park Five, sir?”

Trump reportedly responded to him at one point, “Ah, then you're on my side,” to which Salaam replied, “No, no, no, I'm not on your side.”

“Plaintiff Salaam attempted to engage in a civil dialogue with Defendant Trump regarding the false and defamatory statements that Defendant Trump had made about Plaintiffs less than an hour earlier, but Defendant Trump refused to engage in dialogue with him.” , the lawsuit says.

The five men's convictions were overturned in 2002 and Wise, who was still in prison at the time, was released early. The group sued New York City in 2003 and after a decades-long stalemate, the suit was settled for $41 million. The city admitted no wrongdoing by its police or prosecutors.

Salaam was elected to the New York City Council last year and represents northern Manhattan, including Harlem, East Harlem, parts of the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights.