JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Going Ringside Podcast has obtained multiple court filings that have been made in the last week in the alleged sex trafficking case involving former World Wrestling Entertainment Owner Vince McMahon. McMahon was accused earlier this year by former employee Janel Grant of sex abuse and trafficking while she was an employee of WWE.
Going Ringside has covered McMahon’s legal issues extensively here, here and here.
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On Tuesday, McMahon’s attorneys filed a “Motion to compel arbitration” in U.S. District Court in Connecticut. In the claim they write: “By publicly filing her salacious, false and defamatory Complaint, Plaintiff has brazenly and intentionally violated a binding contract to arbitrate.”
The filing also questions Grant’s accounting of events in her original complaint against McMahon, John Laurinaitis (a former McMahon subordinate at WWE), and WWE. “Plaintiff was not ‘dealing with profound grief (from her parents’ death) and struggling financially’”. It questions if she was providing “around-the-clock caregiving” to her parents.
The motion also claims Grant was in a separate romantic relationship while in a relationship with McMahon. It also accuses her of fabricating sexual assault allegations including ones that he defecated on her head. “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 fiance four floors below without incident”.
Grant’s lawyers have responded to this in a motion asking the court to strike McMahon’s motion. The motion calls McMahon’s assertions “inflammatory lies”.
“Even for Vince McMahon, the baseless, irrelevant, and false statements in the Motion’s ‘Preliminary Statement’ -- designed solely to harass and intimidate his longtime victim,” Grant’s filing states. “For instance, McMahon’s unsupported assertions that Janel was ‘absent in her’ dying parents’ lives and engaged to a wealthy attorney when she met McMahon are not only falsehoods conceived by McMahon to intimidate Janel into submission -- as he has done countless times before -- but have nothing to do with the legal arguments raised by the Motion”.
It adds: “McMahon twists these truths to fit his own fictional narrative, much like the fantasy world of professional wrestling from where he came.”
Going Ringside contacted attorney Belkis Plata with Florida-based Plata Schott Law to break down what these two filings mean to the case. Here’s her analysis.
On McMahon’s filing: “McMahon’s filing is him is trying to have the court case moved to arbitration based on a prior agreement with Janel Grant, which included an arbitration clause. The filing discusses the terms of their agreement, particularly focusing on clauses about confidentiality and monetary considerations. It outlines McMahon’s defense against Grant’s allegations, emphasizing that their relationship was consensual and highlighting inconsistencies in Grant’s claims. The document argues that the agreement is legally binding under the Federal Arbitration Act, and it seeks to enforce this by moving the dispute out of court and into arbitration, as originally agreed by both parties.”
On Grant’s filing: “In Janel Grant’s filing, she is requesting the court strike McMahon’s “Preliminary Statement” in its entirety. Her filing claims that McMahon’s motion includes false statements that are personally attacking her rather than addressing the legal issues at hand, particularly concerning her moral character and personal history. These statements, according to Grant, are meant to harass and intimidate her, and she argues they have no place in a legal argument about whether the dispute should be arbitrated. Grant’s response also highlights her perspective on her own past, contesting McMahon’s portrayal of her relationships and regarding her role in caring for parents. She asserts that these personal attacks distract from the actual legal substance and argues for the court to strike these parts of McMahon’s filing to maintain civility in the proceedings.”