Linda McMahon, who is co-leading former President Trump’s transition team, is named in a new lawsuit accusing World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) leaders of allowing years of sexual abuse of young boys by a ringside announcer.
McMahon was sued along with her husband, Vince McMahon, WWE and its parent company, TKO Group Holdings. She left WWE, which she co-founded along with her husband, in 2009 to run for a Senate seat in Connecticut. Linda McMahon was also the Small Business Administrator under Trump.
The plaintiffs, five sexual assault survivors who were 12 and 13 years old at the time, allege WWE and its leaders knowingly allowed announcer Mel Phillips, who died in 2012, to groom young boys after hiring them to assist the ring crew with errands, luring them in under the guise they’d meet professional 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 partner at DiCello Levitt, who is leading the litigation, said in a statement. “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 campaign for comment on the lawsuit. An attorney for Vince McMahon told USA Today the negligence claims were “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,” attorney Jessica Rosenberg told the outlet.
Plaintiffs claim Phillips was granted private dressing rooms where he filmed relations with the boys. Court documents note that Vince McMahon once said Phillips had an “unnatural and peculiar interest” in young boys and fired Phillips in 1988. But after six weeks, he was rehired and directed to “steer away” from the ring boys, which did not happen, plaintiffs say.
Trump appointed Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, head of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, to lead his transition team in August. Democrats say the campaign is breaking precedent by refusing to sign transition agreements.
The so-called ring boys are not the only former WWE employees coming forward to allege abuse.
Former employee Janel Grant also filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Vince McMahon, WWE executive John Laurinaitis and the WWE organization over accusations of sexual assault and human trafficking. Vince McMahon has also called those allegations lies.
He split from parent company TKO Group Holdings shortly after that lawsuit was filed. A previous investigation found he paid almost $15 million to four different women accusing him of sexual misconduct.
The longtime head of WWE is the subject of a new Netflix documentary series, “Mr. McMahon,” which centers on some accusations of misconduct against him.