On Wednesday, WWE filed a 335 page amended complaint in Laurinaitis v. World Wrestling Entertainment, the lawsuit backed by lawyer Konstantine Kyros that alleges not just claims over brain injuries, but also misclassification as independent contractors and WWE being a racketeering scheme. Most notably, there are several new plaintiffs who have joined the lawsuit, and The Boston Globe ran a feature on some of the new accusations on Saturday afternoon. The new plaintiffs are Ashley Massaro, Perry Satullo (Perry Saturn), David Silva (Sylvano Sousa), Johnny Jeter, Charles Scaggs (2 Cold Scorpio/Flash Funk), Chad Wicks, the estate of John Rechner (Balls Mahoney).
The most attention-grabbing allegations, which headlined the Globe article, came from Massaro, Besides the various allegations related to in-ring injuries, including that she was completely untrained when she had her first WWE match, Massaro alleges that “she was sexually assaulted on a military base in Kuwait” during a “WWE Middle East tour.” According to Massaro, when she got back to the United States, “she was seen by [WWE’s] Dr. [Ferdinand] Rios who interviewed her about the incident.” She says that after the doctor “reported the incident to WWE executives,” they met with her to “apologize for their negligence but persuaded her that it would be best not to report it to appropriate authorities.”
The complaint has no further details about the sexual assault allegation, like if Massaro was accusing a co-worker or a member of the military. WWE not being called out by Kyros for a cover-up does suggest the latter, though. It looks like Massaro is referring to a June 2006 tour where she was joined by Maria Kanellis, Jimmy Hart, and Ron Simmons. When the Globe asked WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt for comment on Massaro’s allegations, he did not refer to them directly, instead directing them to Judge Vanessa Bryant’s comments in dismissing Kyros’ wrongful death lawsuits against WWE a few days ago.
Among the other new allegations in the complaint:
- Kyros alleges that WWE never directly sent him the paperwork showing that 19 of the wrestlers had signed some kind of agreement releasing WWE from future claims.
- Mark “Henry Godwin” Canterbury’s section of the complaint has been rewritten to explain the context of the release he signed in June, which part of the procedure for him being admitted into drug rehabilitation on WWE’s dime. From the complaint: “The document disavows any duty to Canterbury, seeks to make Canterbury’s entry into Rehab contingent on him not being able to cite the WWE’s rehab payment in any legal proceedings, and seeks to release the WWE from any personal injury claims.” It had been suspected that some wrestlers who WWE had sent to rehab had signed such agreements, but this is the first time it’s been confirmed publicly. Canterbury “states he believed it was paperwork for the facility.”
- Kyros is now attempting to tie work for WCW and ECW into the allegations, arguing that WWE is their legal successor. Technically speaking, WWE only bought WCW’s assets (the company continued existing under a new name to fulfill legal obligations) and ECW’s intellectual property. In an email, he explained the legal strategy by saying that the legal concept of “successor liability” is “used to prevent companies from transferring only assets and not liabilities” and it’s “widely used in asbestos litigation for occupational diseases that developed many years later from acquired companies.”
WWE will likely address the new allegations in some form when they move to dismiss the lawsuit.
