A court casts a ruling of wrongdoing on a former lawyer of Vince McMahon.
In the summer of 2022, reports indicated that former WWE CEO Vince McMahon paid millions of dollars to “suppress allegations of sexual misconduct and infidelity.” On January 10, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirmed that McMahon would pay a $400,000 civil penalty and reimburse WWE more than $1.33 million in relation to charges that he failed to disclose payments regarding the alleged hush money settlements.
Per the Associated Press, a former lawyer of McMahon is facing a ruling elsewhere. On February 10, a federal appeals court ruled that the respective lawyer was wrong to withhold 208 pages of documents from a federal grand jury while it investigated how McMahon managed multimillion-dollar settlement agreements, particularly with two female WWE employees accusing him of sexual abuse.
Three judges on the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in New York pointed to a lower court ruling, which cited documents as not protected by attorney-client privilege because of an exception of “crime or fraud.” According to the appeals court, the lower court judge found prosecutors had “reasonable grounds” to believe that McMahon and his lawyer illegally “circumvented” WWE’s internal controls and created phony records by concealing the employees’ claims and settlement agreements from the company.
Furthermore, prosecutors have “reasonable grounds” to believe that McMahon and his lawyer made misleading statements to the company’s auditors.
The appellate judges wrote, “Because the settlement agreements resolving the Victims’ claims were ‘structured and negotiated … to keep them hidden from (the Company),’ the district court found that ’all communications about the claims and settlement agreements were made in furtherance of the criminal scheme to keep (the Company) and its auditors unaware of the allegations.’”
The Associate Press indicates that the status of the grand jury investigation is not immediately clear. The outlet further notes that the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment on the investigation, which it has not disclosed to the public.
