By Rory Carroll
MILAN, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday said Casey Wasserman should step down as chairman of the committee organizing the 2028 Olympic Games following revelations of his interactions with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
Files published by the U.S. Justice Department late last month included flirty email exchanges from more than two decades ago between Wasserman and Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
Wasserman has denied having a personal or business relationship with Epstein. He has previously apologized for his association with Maxwell, saying their relationship came before her or Epstein’s crimes were revealed.
The board of LA28 last week said Wasserman would stay on as chairman after a review, using outside counsel, found his relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not go beyond what had already been publicly documented.
“My opinion is that he should step down,” Bass said in an interview with CNN. “That’s not the opinion of the board.”
The board determined that 23 years ago, before Wasserman or the public knew of Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes, Wasserman and his then-wife flew on a humanitarian mission to Africa on Epstein’s plane at the invitation of the Clinton Foundation.
LA28 said this was his single interaction with Epstein and shortly after, he exchanged the emails with Maxwell, and the board praised Wasserman’s “strong leadership” in running LA28 over the past decade.
ONGOING DISCUSSIONS
The International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday while any decision regarding Wasserman’s future as chief organizer was up to the LA Games board, there were ongoing discussions.
“This obviously is a matter for the board of LA28, still, at this stage,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference in Milan. “As you know an independent law firm looked into it and it’s up to the board to draw their own conclusions.”
LA28 used a law firm to conduct its review of Wasserman’s past interactions with Epstein and Maxwell. Wasserman fully cooperated with the review, LA28 said.
“I understand there are many conversations happening at this moment but I will not make any further comment,” Adams said.
Bass said she does not have the power to fire Wasserman and her focus is on preparing LA to host the Games.
“The board made a decision,” she said. “I think that decision was unfortunate, I don’t support the decision. I do think that we need to look at the leadership.
“However, my job as mayor of Los Angeles is to make sure that our city is completely prepared to have the best Olympics that has ever happened in Olympic history,” she said.
“So my focus is a little different, but the behavior of Maxwell, what they were involved in is abhorrent, and it’s an issue that I’ve worked on for a long time.”
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Wasserman was putting his talent and marketing agency up for sale, telling employees that he felt he had “become a distraction” to its work and had begun the process of selling the company.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Milan; Additional reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus and Ken Ferris)
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