A subpoena in a defamation case against Donald Trump was served at Mar-a-Lago last month, according to a court filing on Election Day.

The Central Park Five's lawsuit subpoena, now often referred to as the “Exonerated Five,” was served at the Florida resort on October 24 at 4:10 p.m. on behalf of former President Trump's security director Dan Freeman, the filing seen by Newsweek showed.

Trump campaigned in the Sun Belt that day, held a rally in Tempe, Arizona, that afternoon, visited a Cuban restaurant in Las Vegas and called into a televised town hall in Detroit to ask his running mate, Senator JD Vance: “ How brilliant is Donald J. Trump?”

In the lawsuit originally filed last month, the exonerated group — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise — accuses Trump of “falsely claiming that plaintiffs killed a person and are guilty of the crime” during the presidential election known”. Debate with Kamala Harris on September 10th.

Trump had said: “They admitted – they said they pleaded guilty. And I said, well, if they pleaded guilty, they would seriously injure a person, ultimately kill him. And when they pleaded guilty, they said we were not guilty.”

The five were wrongly convicted in 1989 for a brutal attack on a New York City jogger in Central Park. They were all later acquitted after serving five to 13 years in prison after the real attacker confessed and was linked to the crime through DNA evidence.

Their lawsuit said Trump made statements that were “demonstrably false. The plaintiffs never pleaded guilty to a crime and were subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. Additionally, the victims of the Central Park attacks were not killed.”

Shortly after it was filed on Oct. 21, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the lawsuit “just another frivolous election interference lawsuit filed by desperate left-wing activists in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris' dangerously liberal agenda.” .”

Newsweek has emailed Trump's campaign team and lawyers seeking comment.

In 1989, Donald Trump paid $85,000 for a full-page US government ad New York Times, calls on the state to reintroduce the death penalty.

One of the five, Yusef Salaam, is now a city council member in New York and spoke at the DNC this year.

Serving the subpoena, a prerequisite for civil lawsuits, means Trump now has until Nov. 15 to respond, just over two months before Inauguration Day, when either he or Kamala Harris begins their presidency.

The Oct. 24 subpoena states that Trump “shall serve on Plaintiff an answer to the attached complaint or a motion pursuant to Rule 12 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The answer or motion must be served on the plaintiff or the plaintiff's attorney…” “

It then states: “If you do not respond, a default judgment will be entered against you for the relief sought in the lawsuit. You must also file your answer or motion with the court.”

The compensation sought in the statement of claim is “an unliquidated amount in excess of $75,000 and such other compensation as this court deems warranted,” according to the original court filing.

Court documents filed Tuesday show that Trump is aware of the lawsuit, according to Freeman, who said in the return of the subpoena that he had informed Trump of the subpoena and the contents of the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs have also requested a jury trial in their defamation lawsuit. There is currently no current information about the next steps in this process.

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