Trump’s legal team requested the judge’s recusal following the revelation that the lead attorney for the plaintiffs had a long-standing friendship with the judge.
U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson granted President-elect Donald Trump’s request for recusal from a defamation case filed by the exonerated “Central Park Five” against him in an order issued on Friday.
On Nov. 13, Shanin Specter, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, disclosed his longstanding friendship with Baylson, revealing that they had been friends since childhood and that he had represented the judge and his wife in the past. Specter also mentioned that Baylson and his wife had visited his home on multiple occasions.
Trump’s legal team argued that the nature of the relationship between Specter and Baylson went beyond a typical lawyer-judge friendship, and raised concerns about the public’s perception of the case’s impartiality if Baylson continued presiding over it.
In their filing, Trump’s lawyers stated, “Recusal is necessary and proper—particularly in a high-profile case involving a Presidential Debate and a President-Elect defendant, where the public’s confidence in the judiciary is all the more critical.”
The defamation lawsuit was initiated on Oct. 21 by the five individuals—Yusef Salaam, Antron Brown (formerly McCray), Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise—who were wrongly convicted of raping and assaulting Trisha Meili in Central Park in 1989. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after DNA evidence proved their innocence.
The plaintiffs were exonerated after Matias Reyes confessed to being the sole perpetrator of the attack on Meili. New York City later settled with the five men for $41 million for their wrongful imprisonment.
Bill Pan contributed to this report.
