Vince McMahon, a co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, will pay over $1.7 million to settle allegations that he concealed payment arrangements linked to sexual assault charges, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Friday.
According to the SEC, McMahon made substantial misstatements in the company’s 2018 and 2021 financial statements and evaded internal accounting controls at WWE.
The SEC further stated that McMahon accepted the settlement without acknowledging or refuting its conclusions. He will reimburse WWE almost $1,331,000 and pay a $400,000 civil penalty.
Executives of the company are not allowed to sign significant contracts on the firm’s behalf and keep that information secret from the auditor and control functions. In a statement, the New York Regional Office’s Associate Regional Director, Thomas P. Smith Jr.
On Friday, McMahon issued the following statement:
The matter is resolved. Nearly three years of investigation by several government authorities come to an end today. Much conjecture has been raised on the nature of the government’s investigation and its potential conclusion. A large portion of that conjecture was unfounded and deceptive, as today’s resolution demonstrates. Ultimately, this was nothing more than a few small accounting mistakes involving some personal payments I made while I was CEO of WWE a few years ago. I’m so happy that I can finally move on from all of this.
According to the SEC, McMahon concealed two payments totaling $7.5 million and $3 million to a female independent contractor and a former WWE employee in exchange for their failure to bring legal action against him. The agency claimed that as a result, the WWE inflated its net income for 2018 by almost 8% and for 2021 by about 1.7%.
In 2022, the Wall Street Journal revealed that McMahon had spent $12 million over 16 years to bury accusations of infidelity and sexual misconduct.
A former employee accused McMahon and the WWE of sex trafficking and abuse last January. A day later, McMahon resigned from his position as executive chairman of TKO, the parent company of the WWE, and gave up all of his responsibilities with the organization.
The January charges were made by Janel Grant, a former paralegal who was offered a job with WWE in 2019 when her parents passed away, and U.S. Department of Justice officials said in May that they had begun an investigation into the claims. Federal prosecutors said last month they would continue their criminal investigation while Grant’s civil case proceeded.
The agreement was reached as former WWE CEO and wife of Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, gets ready for Senate confirmation hearings to serve as the education secretary in President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet.