Vince McMahon to pay $1.7 million for failing to disclose settlements
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(WASHINGTON) — Vince McMahon, the former head of WWE, will pay $1.7 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to disclose two settlements he had with employees while he ran the formerly publicly traded company.
One settlement agreement, signed in 2019, obligated McMahon to pay a former employee $3 million in exchange for the former employee’s agreement not to disclose her relationship with McMahon and her release of potential claims against WWE and McMahon, and the second agreement, signed in 2021, obligated McMahon to pay a former WWE independent contractor $7.5 million in exchange for the independent contractor’s agreement not to disclose her allegations against McMahon and her release of potential claims against WWE and McMahon, according to the SEC.
These payments were not disclosed and, thus, “WWE overstated its 2018 net income by approximately 8 percent and its 2021 net income by approximately 1.7 percent,” according to the SEC.
McMahon agreed to pay a $400,000 civil penalty and reimburse WWE $1,330,915.90, the SEC said.
In a statement posted on X, McMahon said the “case is closed.”
“Today ends nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies,” he said.
“There has been a great deal of speculation about what exactly the government was investigating and what the outcome would be. As today’s resolution shows, much of that speculation was misguided and misleading,” he added. “In the end, there was never anything more to this than minor accounting errors with regard to some personal payments that I made several years ago while I was CEO of WWE. I’m thrilled that I can now put all this behind me.”
McMahon, who is married to President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be education secretary, Linda McMahon, resigned from WWE’s parent company TKO Group Holdings in 2024 after he was sued by a former employee accusing him of sexual misconduct. McMahon has denied any wrongdoing in that suit.
(SAN DIEGO, CA) — A cousin of the Menendez brothers said she’s “thrilled” that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is addressing the brothers’ request for clemency and ordering the parole board to investigate further.
“I certainly gasped in relief,” cousin Anamaria Baralt, one of at least 20 relatives in support of the brothers’ release, told ABC News at a virtual news conference Thursday. “This is huge.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez — who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents — have “cautious optimism” they’ll be released, Baralt said.
“They are the first life without parole prisoners on this path,” added another cousin, Tamara Goodell. “So when we look at any advancements … it’s definitely with hope, but also understanding that there are no promises.”
Newsom announced Wednesday that he’s ordering the parole board to conduct a 90-day “comprehensive risk assessment” investigation into whether the brothers pose “an unreasonable risk to the public” if they’re granted clemency and released.
“There’s no guarantee of outcome here,” Newsom said Wednesday on his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.” “My office conducts dozens and dozens of these clemency reviews on a consistent basis. But this process simply provides more transparency, which I think is important in this case, as well as provides us more due diligence before I make any determination for clemency.”
Baralt called Newsom’s decision a “positive step forward” and said she’s confident the parole board will determine Lyle and Erik Menendez are not a risk to public safety.
“We have seen their rehabilitation over the last three decades,” Baralt said.
She said the parole board’s investigation will find: the brothers’ repeated and sincere remorse; their work to improve prison culture and run several programs to help inmates reenter society; and how they’ve spent most of their lives in prison but still built meaningful lives helping others. The board will also consider their age at the time of the crime and their lack of criminal history outside of “making a horrific decision” as a direct result of the abuse they endured, Baralt said.
“We understand that this is not without professional risk for him,” Baralt said of Newsom.
Though the cousins praised Newsom, they were disappointed and frustrated by Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman’s announcement last week that he’s asked the court to deny the brothers’ habeas corpus petition.
Lyle and Erik Menendez filed the petition in 2023 for a review of two new pieces of evidence not presented at trial: a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin, Andy Cano, eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse from his father Jose Menendez; and allegations from a former boy band member, Roy Rossello, who revealed in 2023 that he was raped by Jose Menendez.
Hochman argued the letter failed the credibility test, saying if it existed, the defense would have used it at the brothers’ trials in the 1990s.
Hochman said Rossello’s allegation failed the admissibility test, because the brothers didn’t know about his claims until recent years, so it couldn’t have influenced their state of mind during the crime and “play a role in self-defense or premeditated murder.”
After Hochman’s announcement, Erik Menendez said to the family, “We need you strong,” Goodell recalled. “They both really mirrored our frustration, but they also said, ‘Let it go. We need to focus on moving forward.’ And so that is our focus.”
Baralt stands by the new evidence.
The letter to Cano, while received in December 1988, was not discovered until recent years, according to the brothers’ attorney.
Baralt stressed that Cano was 14 or 15 at the time Erik Menendez sent him that letter.
“It’s only natural for a teenage boy to not realize he is sitting on critical evidence. Andy wasn’t a lawyer. He wasn’t even an adult,” she said. “To pose the question now, decades later, after he passed, of why wasn’t the letter submitted back then? It’s like asking a teenager who got in a fender bender why didn’t you call the police to file a report — because a teenager doesn’t know any better. He didn’t realize how vital that letter would be to the case.”
And as for Rossello’s admission in 2023, Baralt stressed that it’s common for abuse victims to not disclose for years.
“Roy coming out to share his story in his own time is new evidence” that should be considered admissible, she said.
Baralt said Hochman’s decision “felt extra hurtful, because it was only a few weeks ago that dozens of [relatives] sat in his office and described the horror of being in this victim family, with 35 years of being retraumatized.”
“We have become victims in this process,” she said. “We have been laughed at, ridiculed and forced to relive the pain over and over again.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, while prosecutors alleged they killed for money.
Besides clemency and the habeas corpus petition, another possible path to freedom is resentencing.
In October, then-LA County District Attorney George Gascón announced he supported resentencing for the brothers. Gascón recommended their sentences of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and said they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.
The DA’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
Weeks after Gascón’s announcement, he lost his race for reelection to Hochman.
Hochman, who came into office on Dec. 3, has yet to announce if he is in support of or against resentencing for the brothers. He’s expected to decide in the coming weeks.
A hearing regarding the resentencing case is set for March 20 and 21.
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump, seeking to halt the upcoming sentencing in his criminal hush money case in New York, on Monday filed suit against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan over the judge’s denial of his presidential immunity motions.
The filing came as Judge Merchan denied a request by Trump, filed earlier Monday, that Merchan stay the sentencing, which is scheduled for Friday.
Trump’s lawyers filed the lawsuit — called an Article 78 motion — in New York’s Appellate Division First Department.
Trump’s attorneys argued in the suit that Judge Merchan exceeded his jurisdiction when he denied Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in his ruling last week and ordered Trump to appear for sentencing, either in person or virtually, on Jan. 10 following his May conviction.
Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
In denying Trump’s request to halt the sentencing, Merchan wrote, “This Court has considered Defendant’s arguments in support of his motion and finds that they are for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.”
“Further, this Court finds that the authorities relied upon in the instant motion by the Defendant are for the most part, factually distinguishable from the actual record or legally inapplicable,” Merchan wrote.
In asking Merchan to stay the sentencing, Trump’s attorneys had argued that Merchan “will lack authority to proceed with sentencing” because Trump is still appealing Merchan’s earlier ruling that the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision does not apply to the New York hush money case.
“Forcing a President to continue to defend a criminal case — potentially through trial or, even more dramatically here, through sentencing and judgment — while the appellate courts are still grappling with his claim of immunity would, in fact, force that President ‘to answer for his conduct in court’ before his claim of immunity is finally adjudicated,” defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.
Merchan initially scheduled the sentencing for July 11 before pushing it back in order to weigh if Trump’s conviction was impacted by the Supreme Court’s July ruling prohibiting the prosecution of a president for official acts undertaken while in office. Merchan subsequently ruled that Trump’s conviction related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office urged Merchan to reject Trump’s request, arguing in a filing on Monday that the court has already “bent over backwards” to allow Trump to raise his claims of presidential immunity.
Bragg rejected Trump’s argument that his pending appeals mean Merchan does not have the authority to go forward.
“The notices of appeal that defendant will file with the Appellate Division do not divest this Court of jurisdiction or otherwise automatically stay proceedings in this Court,” Bragg argued in his filing.
Prosecutors argued that Trump’s lawyers failed to make the “extraordinary showing” needed to justify a stay of the entire case as they requested, arguing that the delay is largely a product of Trump’s own doing.
“The current schedule is entirely a function of defendant’s repeated requests to adjourn a sentencing date that was originally set for July 11, 2024; he should not now be heard to complain of harm from delays he caused,” the filing said.
The district attorney said sentencing Trump on Jan. 10 would not impair the discharge of Trump’s official duties because they are “duties he does not possess before January 20, 2025.”
“The President-elect is, by definition, not yet the President. The President elect therefore does not perform any Article II functions under the Constitution, and there are no Article II functions that would be burdened by ordinary criminal process involving the President elect,” the filing said.
Merchan last week indicated that he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge — effectively a blemish on Trump’s record — saying it struck a balance between the duties of president and the sanctity of the jury’s verdict.
Trump’s attorneys, in their Monday filing, said it did not matter.
“It is of no moment that the Court has suggested an intention to impose a sentence of unconditional discharge. While it is indisputable that the fabricated charges in this meritless case should have never been brought, and at this point could not possibly justify a sentence more onerous than that, no sentence at all is appropriate based on numerous legal errors — including legal errors directly relating to Presidential immunity that President Trump will address in the forthcoming appeals,” the defense said in Monday’s filing.
Trump, who is set to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, has also argued that the sentencing would disrupt his presidential transition and “threatens the functioning of the federal government.”
(LAS VEGAS) — Matthew Livelsberger — the suspected driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded on New Year’s Day outside the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel — died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound prior to the blast, officials said at a Thursday press briefing.
Investigators had already collected significant evidence that Livelsberger was behind the wheel of the vehicle before publicly confirming their suspicions.
Officials found credit and identification cards in his name, purchase records identifying him as the owner of weapons found in the destroyed vehicle and identified tattoos similar to Livelsberger’s on the driver’s body, physical injuries to which slowed the identification process.
The Clark County Coroner ultimately identified Livelsberger — of Colorado Springs, Colorado — as the driver on Thursday. His cause of death was a self-inflicted intraoral gunshot wound.
No one else was seriously hurt, though seven bystanders sustained minor injuries, officials said.
An active-duty Army soldier, Livelsberger was found with a gun at his feet. Two firearms — one handgun and one rifle — were found in the vehicle “burnt beyond recognition,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said.
Both weapons were purchased legally on Monday, he added.
Livelsberger rented the Tesla vehicle on Saturday in Denver via the Turo app, before driving to Las Vegas through cities in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. His progress was tracked through Tesla charging stations, officials said.
The vehicle first pulled into the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel valet area just after 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. It then left the area, driving along Las Vegas Boulevard, before returning to the valet area at about 8:39 a.m., exploding 17 seconds after its arrival.
Livelsberger served as a Green Beret in the Army and was on approved leave from serving in Germany at the time of his death, a U.S. Army spokesperson said Thursday.
He received extensive decorations in combat, including the Bronze Star with a “V” device for valor, indicating heroism under fire. Livelsberger received four more standard Bronze Star medals, according to Army records. He also earned the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with three stars. Each star represents service in a separate campaign in Afghanistan.
The Las Vegas incident is not believed to have any direct connection to the New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people — as well as the suspect — and injured 35 others, according to the FBI. The truck used in the New Orleans attack was also rented using the Turo app, officials said.
“At this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas,” the FBI’s Christopher Raia said Thursday morning at a press conference on the New Orleans attack.
The two drivers may have overlapped at Fort Liberty or in Afghanistan, though no evidence suggests the two ever were assigned together or knew each other, McMahill said.
President Joe Biden, in remarks Thursday, said federal investigators have not any evidence of a connection between the attacks but said he had directed them to keep looking.
Livelsberger was a supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, an official briefed on the probe told ABC News. His wife, who investigators spoke to in Colorado Springs, said he had been out of the house since around Christmas after a dispute over allegations of infidelity, the official said.
His wife told officials she did not believe Livelsberger would want to hurt anyone, the official told ABC News.
Livelsberger is believed to have told the person he rented the truck from that he was going camping at the Grand Canyon, the official told ABC News.
Investigators are still looking to determine how the items in the truck were detonated, but with the contents of the vehicle so badly burned, it may be a slow process, according to the official.
The sheriff said Tesla CEO Elon Musk helped the investigation by having the truck unlocked after it auto-locked in the blast and by giving investigators video of the suspect at charging stations along its route from Colorado to Las Vegas.
McMahill said police believe the explosion was an “isolated incident” and that “there is no further threat to the community.” He also said police do not believe anyone was helping the Las Vegas suspect.
“We believe everything is safe now,” McMahill said.
Video played at the Las Vegas news conference showed a load of fireworks-style mortars, gasoline cans and camping fuel canisters in the back of the truck.
The property is the subject of frequent threats and heightened security given its connection to Trump.
