Linda McMahon, who’s co-leading former President Trump’s transition group, is known as in a brand new lawsuit accusing World Wrestling Leisure (WWE) leaders of permitting years of sexual abuse of younger boys by a ringside announcer.
McMahon was sued alongside together with her husband, Vince McMahon, WWE and its father or mother firm, TKO Group Holdings. She left WWE, which she co-founded alongside together with her husband, in 2009 to run for a Senate seat in Connecticut. Linda McMahon was additionally the Small Enterprise Administrator underneath Trump.
The plaintiffs, 5 sexual assault survivors who had been 12 and 13 years previous on the time, allege WWE and its leaders knowingly allowed announcer Mel Phillips, who died in 2012, to groom younger boys after hiring them to help the ring crew with errands, luring them in underneath the guise they’d meet skilled wrestlers.
“Thanks to the bravery of our clients, we finally have a chance to hold accountable those who allowed and enabled the open, rampant sexual abuse of these young boys,” Greg Gutzler, a companion at DiCello Levitt, who’s main the litigation, stated in a press release. “That so many were aware of the sexual abuse of the Ring Boys and did nothing to prevent or stop it is simply unconscionable.”
The Hill has reached out to the WWE and Trump marketing campaign for touch upon the lawsuit. An lawyer for Vince McMahon informed USA Right now the negligence claims had been “absurd, defamatory and utterly meritless”
“We will vigorously defend Mr. McMahon and are confident the court will find that these claims are untrue and unfounded,” lawyer Jessica Rosenberg informed the outlet.
Plaintiffs declare Phillips was granted personal dressing rooms the place he filmed relations with the boys. Court docket paperwork word that Vince McMahon as soon as stated Phillips had an “unnatural and peculiar interest” in younger boys and fired Phillips in 1988. However after six weeks, he was rehired and directed to “steer away” from the ring boys, which didn’t occur, plaintiffs say.
Trump appointed Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, head of the monetary agency Cantor Fitzgerald, to steer his transition group in August. Democrats say the marketing campaign is breaking precedent by refusing to signal transition agreements.
The so-called ring boys usually are not the one former WWE staff coming ahead to allege abuse.
Former worker Janel Grant additionally filed a lawsuit earlier this 12 months in opposition to Vince McMahon, WWE govt John Laurinaitis and the WWE group over accusations of sexual assault and human trafficking. Vince McMahon has additionally known as these allegations lies.
He break up from father or mother firm TKO Group Holdings shortly after that lawsuit was filed. A earlier investigation discovered he paid nearly $15 million to 4 completely different girls accusing him of sexual misconduct.
The longtime head of WWE is the topic of a brand new Netflix documentary sequence, “Mr. McMahon,” which facilities on some accusations of misconduct in opposition to him.
