He seeks to have the issue settled under arbitration, as his lawyers argue is required by the NDA Grant’s sex trafficking case seeks to have voided. Her lawyer has issued a statement in response to the filing.
Earlier today (April 23), Vince McMahon’s legal team issued a filing in response to Janel Grant’s lawsuit accusing McMahon of sex trafficking and other abuses during the course of his relationship with Grant, a former WWE employee.
The filing with the United States District Court for Connecticut includes a motion to compel arbitration. McMahon is requesting the case be handled in private arbitration hearings rather than litigating it in court publicly, something which his lawyers (James A. Budinetz of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter LLP, and Jessica T. Rosenberg & Jonathan L. Shapiro of Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP) argue is mandated by the binding arbitration clause in the non-disclosure agreement Grant signed in 2021.
From McMahon’s filing:
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.
McMahon alleges that Grant broke their NDA, presumably during media coverage of and investigations into his 2022 hush money scandal. That led to his withholding payments to Grant she was to receive in exchange for signing the agreement and upholding its terms. Her suit accuses WWE of leaking her name and claims she was never contacted when the Board of Directors was looking into McMahon’s financial dealings. It seeks to have the NDA voided as a result of his stopping payment.
McMahon previously denied all the allegations in Grant’s suit against him, John Laurinaitis & WWE, and the memo generally and aggressively continues that denial:
For the avoidance of doubt, however, Defendant vehemently and categorically denies all allegations of wrongdoing in the Complaint, including Plaintiff’s outrageous claims that Defendant coerced Plaintiff into unwanted sexual acts, sexually assaulted and/or battered her, trafficked her, and defecated on her. Those are false statements intended for publicity.
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.
It also includes specific responses to her version of events in support of the arbitration request. McMahon continues to maintain that their relationship was completely consensual, with the memo referring to a “love letter” that leaked to the press earlier this month:
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.
Grant’s suit argued that she was especially vulnerable when McMahon initiated a relationship with her, particularly due to her having been grieving the loss of her parents and on the verge of financial collapse as a result of caring for them prior to their deaths. Several points in the McMahon memo refute those claims:
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.
Court records further show that contrary to her claim of “around-the-clock caregiving,” Plaintiff’s father lived in a senior care home in Stamford, Connecticut before he passed away— not with her—and the Grants’ neighbor would bring Plaintiff’s mother dinner and “help around the house” before she passed.
In McMahon’s version of events, he and Grant were involved in an open relationship. In particular, he says she was living with a man she had long been engaged to marry:
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 (“Goncalves”). Since August 2022, Goncalves has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer of TelevisaUnivision, and Goncalves previously held positions with Mastercard and HewlettPackard.
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.
It is nonsensical that the disturbing alleged acts in the Complaint including violence, coerced sex, and forcing Plaintiff to be defecated on were taking place before Plaintiff returned to her lawyer fiancé four floors below without incident. Defendant was never contacted by Goncalves (who was on the Board of the luxury building), anyone at the building, the police, any friends of Plaintiff, or any lawyer or advocate for Plaintiff at any time about the fictitious, extensive, years-long abusive behavior alleged in the Complaint.
Grant’s lawyer, Ann Callis, issued a response to Post Wrestling about McMahon’s filing. Callis directly addresses the claims regarding her client’s parents and the “fiancé” Grant was living with when she met McMahon:
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.
She was not dating at the time. 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.
Vince McMahon resigned from WWE and its parent company TKO shortly after Grant’s suit became public, ending decades leading the company he purchased from his father in the 1980s. TKO has since sought to make it clear he no longer has any role in their current or future plans, and McMahon is in the process of selling off his remaining shares in TKO amidst speculation about his future in the pro wrestling business — a future that may depend on the outcome of this motion and the overall resolution of Grant’s suit.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, confidential support is available by calling 800.656.HOPE. Links to other resources for anyone who has been abused can be found here.
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