Opinion: Trump keeps lying about 'Central Park Five.' Black and Latino voters, take note.

Donald Trump’s notorious inability to acknowledge a mistake – even when everyone else can clearly see how wrong he is – will now probably cost him a big bundle of money in yet another court case.

It should cost him support from Black and Latino voters, too.

You may recall the names Antron Brown (formerly known as Antron McCray), Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise by the undeserved moniker slapped on the Black and Latino teenagers 35 years ago ? "The Central Park Five." They now prefer to be known as the "Exonerated Five" since their convictions for a pair of attacks and a rape in 1989 were vacated in 2002.

They sued Trump in federal court in Philadelphia on Monday for defamation after he falsely claimed during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last month that they pleaded guilty after being charged and had killed someone. They pleaded not guilty and nobody died in the attacks that sparked the controversy.

New York acknowledged the travesty in the treatment of the five, who were ages 14-16 when they were arrested, by paying them $41 million to settle a lawsuit in 2014. In a statement, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio said: "The City had a moral obligation to right this injustice."

Trump could never muster the kind of character it takes to meet any notion of moral obligation. It is now and always has been far outside the range of his ego-driven, narcissistic personality.

Donald Trump can't stop accusing the Central Park Five of a crime

Trump, who used the 1989 Central Park attacks to draw attention to himself, ran full-page ads in New York newspapers in the weeks after with the banner headline, "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY." Trump has a long history, laid out in the complaint filed Monday, of continuing to accuse the five men of criminal behavior even after they were exonerated.

Harris made that point during the Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News during a segment on "race and politics." Her opponent, of course, turned defensive and then said a bunch of things that were not true.

"They admitted ? they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately," Trump lied from the debate stage.

The complaint filed against him Monday notes that Trump has attacked a documentary about how the men were exonerated, which means he had the facts at his disposal and could have told the truth.

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But this would require Trump to acknowledge he was wrong. He lacks the character for that.

Shanin Specter, a lawyer for the five men, said they didn't bother to give Trump a chance to apologize for what he said in the debate or issue a retraction because they knew, given his history since their exoneration, that "there was no chance of that happening."

"He has been single-minded about this for the last 35 years," Specter told me. "And he has not let the facts get in the way of his narrative."

Trump challenged to respond to lawsuit by lawyer who filed it

Trump's reelection campaign was oh so eager to prove the attorney's point, responding to the complaint by dismissing it as "just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists" while trying to connect it to Harris and her campaign.

Specter told me the complaint, written in a way that avoids any extraneous political language, was about seeking "redress in the courts."

"It would have been nice if Mr. Trump would have had his lawyer respond to it to say whether it was true or false," Specter said.

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Trump does have plenty of lawyers and he keeps them very busy.

Some of them lost the May 2023 civil case where Trump was held liable for sexually assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll, who was awarded $5 million by a New York jury. Trump's lawyers also lost the follow-up defamation case Carroll filed against Trump, who was hit in January with an additional $83 million judgment.

So Trump, whom a jury found had sexually assaulted Carroll, has spent years falsely accusing the Exonerated Five of sexual assault and other violence. He is exactly the kind of person he claims to despise.

Will Trump ever be held accountable for this?

Two things can be true at the same time. This lawsuit can be unrelated to the election. But it can have consequences as Trump attempts to expand his support among Black and Latino voters.

Trump's appeal to hate in his 1989 newspaper ads always had the stench of racism, an undercurrent in his bid for attention just below the surface. His public pronouncements were bait for racists, the beginnings of his base.

Maybe the time has finally come for him to be held accountable for that, after 67 million debate viewers saw Trump repeat his lies about the Exonerated Five.

"It's devastating for them," Specter said. "They have to clear their name all over again. Now it's been defamed to 67 million people. And it just never stops."

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Salaam, now 50, is a New York City Council member. He came to Philadelphia for last month's debate and tried to speak with Trump afterward in the "spin room," asking whether he would "apologize to the Exonerated Five."

"Ah, you're on my side then," Trump responded, in what feels like the one millionth moment of proof that his mind has turned to mush. He then waved and wandered away as Salaam repeated his request for an apology.

I hope we get the whole Trump show here ? a trial with an elderly defendant unable to remain awake until a jury holds him responsible in the only way that gets his attention: by squeezing him for cash. Trump won't be able to wander away from that.

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: 'Central Park 5' sue Trump. But he'll never admit he lied