Vince McMahon Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Update – McMahon Files Motion to Compel Arbitration for Lawsuit

As noted before, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit this past January against TKO Executive Chairman Vince McMahon accusing McMahon of committing sex trafficking and sexual abuse towards her during her time in the company. McMahon resigned from TKO Group and WWE shortly afterwards over the fallout from this lawsuit.

F4WOnline’s Ian Carey reported that McMahon filed a motion earlier today to the United States District Court of Connecticut requesting to compel arbitration of Grant’s lawsuit against him. Carey reported that in legal terms this means that McMahon is asking the court to recognize the arbitration clause in his NDA deal with Grant and to send the matter to private arbitration hearings with an independent arbitrator rather than litigation.

In the filing, McMahon is claiming that Grant had intentionally violated her NDA requiring arbitration for any dispute of its terms. McMahon is also claiming that he never coerced Grant into doing anything and never had mistreated her in any way.

By publicly filing her salacious, false and defamatory Complaint, Plaintiff has brazenly and intentionally violated a binding contract to arbitrate.

Contrary to Plaintiff’s false allegations, Plaintiff and Defendant (collectively, the “Parties”) engaged in a consensual relationship during which Defendant never coerced Plaintiff into doing anything and never mistreated her in any way. In fact, in a love letter Plaintiff wrote to Defendant shortly before the Parties ended their relationship, Plaintiff described Defendant as “[m]y best friend, my love and my everything,” praising him for being the “wonderful, tender, vulnerable, heart-on-your-sleeve soul you really are.” It is incredulous that Plaintiff, a then 42-year-old woman who claims on her resume to have a law degree from Pace University, would have written these words to Defendant months after all the events in the Complaint of alleged abuse, coercion, and “sex-trafficking” took place.

The filing also refuted claims made in Grant’s lawsuit stating that Grant was in financial difficulties or was a full-time care giver prior to the start of her relationship with McMahon.

At the time the Parties met in 2019, Plaintiff was not “dealing with profound grief [from her parents’ deaths] and struggling financially” as described in her Complaint and she had not been “devoting years to around-the-clock caregiving” of her parents.

Those statements are complete falsehoods. Based on a foreclosure action against Plaintiff and her parents, Plaintiff’s father passed away on April 18, 2017—two years before Plaintiff met Defendant – and his marital status was recorded as “widowed” confirming Plaintiff’s mother had passed earlier.

During the Parties’ consensual relationship, Plaintiff and Defendant knew that the other was also involved in other romantic relationships. Plaintiff was living in Park Tower, a luxury multi-million-dollar building in Stamford, Connecticut with her long-time fiancé, attorney, Brian Goncalves.

Plaintiff and Goncalves lived in the same luxury building as Defendant—just four floors below—when the Parties began their affair in 2019. Plaintiff would often visit Defendant at his condominium at all hours, including at 2:30 a.m., to pursue their affair and then return back to her condominium with Goncalves the same night.

In regards to the NDA signed between McMahon and Grant, the filing also stated that the terms of this NDA require any disputes to go through private arbitration.

In fact, because the Parties wished to “preserve the confidential and private nature” of any disputes under the Agreement, they specifically provided in the Agreement that disputes would be resolved through arbitration. Plaintiff was represented by a lawyer who negotiated the Agreement for her before she executed it.When Defendant learned that Plaintiff, despite her promises, had violated the Agreement by wrongfully disclosing both the existence of the Agreement and their relationship, he exercised his contractual right to withhold payment otherwise owed under the Agreement.

In response, Plaintiff sought to harm him. She intentionally violated the enforceable contract with her salacious, false and defamatory public filing. However, the FAA and binding United States Supreme Court precedent—and Plaintiff’s own agreement—require that if Plaintiff wishes to proceed with her fictitious claims, she must do so in arbitration, not in this Court, and that this action be stayed pending arbitration.

The filing also included McMahon refuting all the allegations against him in Grant’s lawsuit.

When the Complaint’s allegations are adjudicated in the proper forum (arbitration), witnesses are called to testify under oath, and all communications between the Parties (including those authored by Plaintiff which she intentionally did not share in her Complaint) are produced, the allegations and claims will be disproven and Plaintiff will be exposed for the liar she is. Meanwhile, for the foregoing reasons and as set forth further below, Defendant’s motion should be granted.

In an official statement to Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston, Grant’s lawyer Ann Callis refuted the claims made by McMahon stating that Grant was not a caregiver for her ailing parents before entering a relationship with McMahon. Callis also refuted the claims made about Grant’s relationship with Goncalves in regards to her staying at his apartment.

“Vince McMahon has never known a storyline that he doesn’t twist to fit his own shameful narrative. Her father was in in-home hospice during his final days where Janel continued to care for him around the clock. Prior to his death, she had been caring for her blind, wheelchair-bound mother. Using the grief of someone who lost both of her parents is an all new level of disgusting.

Her ex-boyfriend allowed her to stay in the apartment as she rebuilt her life and resume post-taking care of her parents. She had no job and no other financial support to lean back on.”