Saturday, January 27, 2018

She Said Vince McMahon Assaulted Her. Prosecutors Shrugged.


She said the wrestling and future XFL magnate told her after she got away that “he was only trying to have some fun.” Then a Florida prosecutor decided not to press charges.

By Ben Feuerherd

On a Saturday afternoon in January of 2006, a young woman walked into a Papa John’s pizza restaurant at the end of a Boca Raton strip mall and asked for help. The woman, who worked at a tanning salon a few doors down, was in tears. A man had just tried to “attack and rape her” at the salon, she told an employee of the pizza joint.

That man was later identified as Vince McMahon, chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment. The Boca Raton police believed they had enough evidence to file an arrest warrant against McMahon for misdemeanor simple battery after the tanning salon employee accused him of groping her and trying to kiss her, according to a police report reviewed by The Daily Beast.

The allegation against McMahon was covered at the time by local media and in an Associated Press report. Some of the details about the alleged crime were included in the reports, but press attention dissipated after McMahon was not criminally charged, with prosecutors citing a lack of independent evidence to charge him.

McMahon, who was married to wife Linda, now the chief of the Small Business Administration for President Donald Trump, strongly denied the allegation at the time. He did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

In announcing this week his plan for a new XFL, McMahon declared that "the quality of the human being is very important. Just as important as the quality of the player." In his football league, he continued, “you want someone who does not have any criminality whatsoever associated with them. Even if you have a DUI, you will not play in the XFL."

A handful of 2006 press reports remain online (Woman, 22, Says McMahon Tried Too Many Moves), but many others have disappeared or can only be found on forums where they appear to have been pasted without permission.

McMahon’s accuser, who was 22 at the time, walked into the Boca Raton Police Department on Jan. 29, 2006 and told officer T.E. Baker that she had been groped by McMahon at the tanning salon the previous day. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Daily Beast 

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