Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday called on Casey Wasserman to step aside as chairman of the organizing committee for the 2028 Olympic Games after newly released documents detailed his past interactions with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
Records published by the U.S. Department of Justice late last month included email exchanges from more than 20 years ago between Wasserman and Maxwell, a former associate of the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. The messages were described as flirtatious.
Wasserman has denied having a personal or business relationship with Epstein. He previously apologized for his association with Maxwell, saying their contact occurred years before her crimes or Epstein’s offenses became public.
The board of LA28 said last week that Wasserman would remain chairman after a review found his relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not extend 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 said that 23 years ago, before Wasserman or the public were aware of Epstein’s 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 that was his only interaction with Epstein and that he exchanged emails with Maxwell shortly afterward.
The board praised Wasserman’s "strong leadership” in leading LA28 over the past decade.
Bass said she does not have the authority to remove Wasserman and that her focus is on preparing Los Angeles 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 host the best Olympics in 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.