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Vince McMahon‘s lawyer claims the federal government’s investigation into the former WWE Chairman has been dropped.
The New York Post reports a lawyer representing Vince McMahon told them that federal prosecutors in Manhattan have dropped their criminal investigation against him. McMahon was being investigated for allegedly attempting to cover up multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
On Monday, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that McMahon’s lawyer was wrong to withhold more than 200 pages of documents related to the case. Unless there was an appeal to the Supreme Court, McMahon’s team would have submit those documents to a grand jury. However, McMahon’s lawyer, Robert W. Allen, told the Post that the court ruling is immaterial because the case against McMahon has been closed.
“This is simply the result of an appeal of a procedural matter that was argued five months ago,” McMahon’s lawyer, Robert W. Allen, told The Post. “We have been in consistent communication with the government since that time and understand, with no ambiguity, that the investigation has definitively concluded and will not result in charges.”
McMahon was being investigated for attempting to hide allegations of sexual misconduct from two former female employees that he paid $10.5 million in “hush money” to stay quiet. On Friday, a group of appeals judges considered whether McMahon broke the law by hiding the allegations.
The decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals suggests the case is still active. However, Allen stressed that prosecutors ended the probe without asking the grand jury to bring an indictment against McMahon. The apparent decision by prosecutors to drop the case against McMahon is despite a federal judge’s ruling in June 2024 that the government established probable cause to believe McMahon and a former lawyer broke the law in suppressing evidence.
McMahon was not named directly in the ruling from a three-judge panel. However, it refers to “the subject of an ongoing grand jury investigation concerning whether, as CEO, he engaged in a criminal scheme to circumvent the company’s internal accounting controls and mislead company auditors in order to conceal multiple allegations of sexual misconduct raised against him by two former company employees.”
McMahon is still facing civil charges related to the sexual assault allegations by Janel Grant, a former WWE employee. The Department of Justice requested a six-month pause in Grant’s cause in June 2024 to open a criminal investigation. They resumed their investigation in December. Grant’s lawyers recently filed an amended lawsuit against McMahon that introduced new allegations and evidence.
