Former President Donald Trump used the national stage of Tuesday’s presidential debate to reiterate his decades-long stance on the Central Park Five, a group of rehabilitated black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of a brutal rape and assault in 1989.

In the second half of the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris referred to the infamous full-page ad that Trump took out in New York newspapers after the attack, in which Trump called for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York.

Democrat Harris said Trump’s ad called for “the execution of five innocent black and Latino boys.”

Trump, in turn, accused Harris of “sowing division” and then claimed that “many people, including Mayor Bloomberg, agreed with me on the Central Park Five.”

“They admitted it,” Trump said. “They said they pleaded guilty. And I said, well, if they pleaded guilty, then they seriously injured the person, ultimately killed them. … Then they pleaded, ‘We’re not guilty.'”

Trump’s statement contained several untruths.

The Central Park Five actually pleaded not guilty; they were convicted at trial after giving confessions that ultimately turned out to be false. The convictions of all five men – including current New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam – were overturned in 2002, thanks in part to DNA evidence.

The victim of the attack was abused and fell into a coma, but was not killed.

And Trump’s reference to Bloomberg’s support was not clear. The mayor at the time of the attack was Ed Koch, whom Trump criticized in his ad. Bloomberg served as mayor from 2002 to 2013. His administration fought a civil rights lawsuit filed against the city by the Central Park Five, which the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio eventually settled.

Trump’s full-page ad has also appeared in each of his previous presidential campaigns.

The ad, which appeared in the New York Times and others, did not explicitly mention the Central Park incident, even though it was published at a time when the teenagers began making their false confessions.

“Bring back the death penalty,” the ad said in bold letters. “Bring back our police!”

Trump has repeatedly refused to apologize for the ad, saying in 2019 that the teenagers had “admitted their guilt,” according to the New York Times.

Salaam, a Democrat from Harlem, was elected to the City Council last year. He spoke at this year’s Democratic convention along with three other members of the exonerated Central Park Five and the Reverend Al Sharpton.

“(Trump) ignores the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong,” Salaam said. “He has never changed and he never will.”