World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman Vince McMahon appears in the ring during the WWE Monday Night Raw show at the Thomas & Mack Center on August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
Vince McMahon and WWE were accused Wednesday in a lawsuit filed on behalf of five victims of knowing about and failing to stop a ringside announcer’s sexual exploitation of young boys.
Suitfiled a lawsuit in Baltimore County against McMahon and his wife, Linda McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment and its parent company TKO Holdings allowed “open, rampant abuse” of so-called “ring boys” as young as 12 who worked as ringside announcer Mel Jr. in the 1980s Assistant to Melvin Phillips Jr. in the 1990s.
NBC News has reached out to Team McMahon, TKO and WWE for comment; so far, no one has publicly responded or commented on the case. Phillips died in 2012.
“Phillips targeted children from broken homes and groomed, exploited and sexually abused underage ring boys,” the law firm of DiCello Levitt and Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, which filed the lawsuit, said in a statement.
The lawsuit alleges that the sexual assaults against the five unidentified plaintiffs occurred at wrestling matches but also at restaurants and other venues. Phillips “seduced and manipulated” 12- and 13-year-old boys with promises of meetings with wrestling stars.
The lawsuit alleges that Phillips would abuse the plaintiff in his locker room while filming the incident on camera. Two of the claimants were from Massachusetts, two from Pennsylvania, and one from Florida — they were known as John Doss.
The lawsuit alleges the McMahons knew for a long time that Phillips had a “special and unnatural interest” in little boys.
Greg Gutzler, a partner at DiCello Levitt who is leading the lawsuit, said it was “simply unconscionable” that so many people allegedly knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it.
“Thanks to the bravery of our clients, we finally have the opportunity to hold accountable those who allowed and enabled the open, rampant sexual abuse of these young boys,” he said.
The suit alleges that McMahon fired Phillips in 1988 after allegations about the announcer’s behavior and rehired him six weeks later on the condition that he “stay away from children.” “He did not, and they knew it,” the lawsuit adds.
The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiffs only recently learned how much the people named in the lawsuit knew about the alleged crimes, in part because former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit accusing McMahon of sex trafficking and coercion. She had sex with other people.
McMahon Dispute the charges“I stand by my previous assertions that Ms. Grant’s lawsuit is filled with lies and salacious fabrications that never occurred and is a vindictive distortion of the truth,” he said in a statement earlier this year.
Netflix six-part documentary“Mr. McMahon,” released last month, focused on multiple allegations of misconduct against McMahon, including the case brought by Grant.
nbc news report last yearWWE disclosed Investigators issued a federal grand jury subpoena to McMahon and executed a search warrant.
Marci Hamilton, Founder and CEO american childrenThe nonprofit group that works to strengthen children’s rights said the case was brought to trial because it fought for a statute of limitations window in Maryland.
“One of the most important tools in our arsenal is pushing for statute of limitations reform so that perpetrators and the institutions that support them can be held accountable where disclosure is delayed,” she said.
