WWE founder Vince McMahon is under federal criminal investigation amid a sexual assault and trafficking lawsuit filed by a former employee of the wrestling company.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the now-former TKO Group chairman has been the subject of a federal probe since 2022 following a wave of allegations against McMahon. As part of a federal warrant that was issued, McMahon had his cellphone seized by authorities.
In 2022, McMahon announced he was stepping down from the WWE after an internal probe that found allegations of a hush-money payment to a former employee, with McMahon allegedly paying $3 million to the then-unnamed female, a WWE paralegal, to keep their “consensual” affair private. Following the investigation, he returned to WWE in July 2023.
However, in January, that woman — Janel Grant, who was hired in the specially made role of “administrator-coordinator” in WWE’s legal department — filed a lawsuit against McMahon, WWE head of talent relations John Laurinaitis, and the wrestling company outlining years of alleged sexual assaults.
Among the allegations in the lawsuit, is McMahon’s demands that Grant make herself sexually available to both himself and Laurinaitis (who is also named in the suit), as well as unnamed “WWE Corporate Officers” and a “WWE Superstar.” Grant also accused McMahon of degrading her, and in one incident, said that named and Laurinaitis locked her in an office and raped her.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Grant is one of five women who are cooperating with the federal investigation; the other women include a former WWE female wrestler who claimed McMahon coerced her into oral sex, a former WWE referee who publicly accused McMahon of raping her in 1986, and a spa manager who said that McMahon assaulted her at a California spa.
While McMahon denied the accusations in the Grant lawsuit, he resigned from his chairman role with the TKO Group soon after.