The chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games organizing committee said he ‘deeply regrets’ his presence in the most recent batch of files and documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the federal investigation related to convicted sex offender and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Casey Wasserman acknowledged in a statement what appear to be a series of flirty and sexually suggestive emails he exchanged in 2003 with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Epstein over the course of a decade.
Included among the electronic correspondence made public in recent days was a March 2003 email in which Wasserman wrote, “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”
Wasserman, 51, is the founder and CEO of an eponymous global sports marketing and talent agency with clients such as Adam Sandler, Brad Pitt and Katie Ledecky. He is considered a prominent Democratic Party donor and serves as a trustee for the Clinton Foundation. He has not been charged in the criminal cases against Epstein and Maxwell.
‘I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,’ Wasserman’s statement said. ‘I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.’
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting a federal sex-trafficking trial, and has ties to some of the world’s richest and most powerful people, including former President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump. Both men have denied any wrongdoing, and neither has been charged.
Wasserman helped lead the efforts to bring the Summer Olympics back to Los Angeles in recent years. The city previously hosted the Olympics in 1984.