Judge pauses lawsuit alleging Trump’s Education secretary pick enabled sexual abuse of children decades ago
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN
(CNN) — A judge has paused an ongoing lawsuit against Linda McMahon, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, that accuses her and the company she once led, World Wrestling Entertainment, of failing to act on allegations of sex abuse of children who helped ringside at wrestling events in the 1980s.
The move in the WWE case, from Judge James Bredar in Maryland’s federal district court, will keep the proceeding against McMahon and the company at bay until a ruling from the Maryland Supreme Court, which heard arguments in September.
The lawsuit raises questions of what McMahon knew and when at the time she was head of the professional wrestling company and a ringside announcer allegedly preyed on underage boys. The pause has the potential to delay the case through any Senate confirmation proceeding for McMahon, who denies the allegations.
The case recently arose after Maryland changed its law to lift the statute of limitations for lawsuits related to sex abuse of minors. But the Maryland Supreme Court is set to rule on a challenge to that law from other organizations that have been sued and argue they should not have to face allegations of turning a blind eye to abuse years after it occurs.
The suit alleges McMahon, her husband, the WWE and TKO Group Holdings, the league’s parent company, knowingly allowed employee Melvin Phillips Jr. to use his position as ringside announcer to sexually exploit children. Lawyers for both of the McMahons have called the accusations against them false.
World Wrestling Entertainment and its parent company asked to pause the case against them, McMahon and her husband Vince earlier this month for reasons of “judicial efficiency and economy.” They also say they plan to challenge the Maryland law allowing for the lawsuit, if the case against them were to move forward, according to the court record.
The suit was filed in October in Baltimore County, Maryland, on behalf of five John Does, who say they were ages 13 to 15 when Phillips met and recruited them to work as “Ring Boys,” who helped set up and take down wrestling rings at WWE events.
Each of them say they suffered mental and emotional abuse as a result of the alleged abuse.
Phillips worked for the WWE in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s as a “prominent ringside announcer and crew chief.” He died in 2012.
The lawsuit claims that the McMahons were negligent as employers and failed to protect the plaintiffs, and that they were aware of Phillips’ alleged abuse. Vince McMahon said that he and Linda were aware as early as the early to mid-1980s that Phillips had a “peculiar and unnatural interest” in young boys, according to the filing, and at one point Phillips was fired from the company then rehired a few weeks later.
CNN’s John Towfighi contributed to this report.
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