{"id":250264,"date":"2025-09-24T00:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250264\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T00:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:35:14","slug":"ny-judge-found-credible-evidence-that-sen-ron-wydens-kids-relentlessly-harassed-wifes-assistant-before-suicide-docs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250264\/","title":{"rendered":"NY judge found ‘credible evidence’ that Sen. Ron Wyden’s kids relentlessly harassed wife’s assistant before suicide: docs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New York judge found \u201ccredible evidence\u201d that Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden\u2019s kids terrorized their mom\u2019s personal assistant<\/a> with \u201cabhorrent\u201d homophobic slurs \u2013 including \u201clittle zest bunny\u201d \u2013 before his suicide, documents show.<\/p>\n

Wyden\u2019s wife and the kids\u2019 mom, Nancy Bass Wyden \u2014 who owns the Big Apple\u2019s famed Strand Bookstore \u2014 largely didn\u2019t object to the accusations her former assistant, Brandon O\u2019Brien, raised during their fight over unemployment benefits, noted the administrative-law judge in her Feb. 28 labor decision favoring O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, 35, ended up committing suicide in May, allegedly driven to taking his own life after working for Bass Wyden for two years, according to a wrongful-death suit<\/a> filed by the worker\u2019s widowed husband, Thomas Maltezos,\u00a0against her real-estate company, citing the alleged abuse.<\/p>\n

Judge Lorraine Ferrigno found \u201ccredible evidence\u201d that the children of Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (pictured) terrorized their mom\u2019s personal assistant, Brandon O\u2019Brien, with \u201cabhorrent\u201d homophobic slurs before he committed suicide. AP<\/p>\n

Months earlier, when O\u2019Brien had attempted to collect unemployment checks after he resigned from Bass Real Estate LLC in Sept. 2024, Bass Wyden fought him on it, arguing he shouldn\u2019t receive government assistance because he only left the job when he knew he was about to be fired for theft, court papers show.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0administrative law Judge Lorraine Ferrigno ultimately sided with O\u2019Brien. <\/p>\n

The lawyers for Maltezos say in their lawsuit that the ruling \u201caffirmed\u201d O\u2019Brien\u2019s hostile workplace allegations.<\/p>\n

The administrative judge wrote that two of the Wydens\u2019 three kids \u2014 a then-11-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son \u2014 texted O\u2019Brien messages calling him \u201czesty,\u201d which can be a homophobic slur<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The texts included such missives as \u201cactual zest kitten\u201d and \u201ccan you please order me food my little zest bunny.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teen son also referred to O\u2019Brien as a \u201cf\u2013\u201d or \u201cf\u2014-t\u201d \u2014 instances that at times were witnessed by Bass Wyden, who \u201cstrongly admonished\u201d her son, according to the judge. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Such accusations have since been mirrored in O\u2019Brien\u2019s widower\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n

When O\u2019Brien first started working for Bass Wyden, he complained to her that her daughter behaved and spoke sexually and inappropriately around him, and while the mom didn\u2019t remember the gripe, she recalled the child\u2019s male au pair leveling a similar complaint, the law judge\u2019s findings state.<\/p>\n

As the harassment dragged on, O\u2019Brien finally received one more \u201chomophobic\u201d message from the son that led him to quit Sept. 30, 2024, according to court docs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe credible evidence establishes that [O\u2019Brien] voluntarily separated from his employment after he received a homophobic text message from the teenage son of his boss after experiencing prior incidents with the children and nothing changed,\u201d the ruling states.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, 35, commited suicide in May after previously working for Bass Wyden for 2 years. gofundme<\/p>\n

The judge wrote that while Bass Wyden couldn\u2019t recall some of O\u2019Brien\u2019s allegations, \u201cthere does not seem to be much disagreement that the employer\u2019s children, more specifically her son, harassed [O\u2019Brien].<\/p>\n

\u201cAdditionally, there seems to not be a dispute that the employer found her son\u2019s homophobic statements abhorrent and chastised him for them,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

Bass Wyden attempted to counter that O\u2019Brien only quit because he realized he was going to be fired.<\/p>\n

She claimed that the night before he resigned, she discovered he stole from the company, including through credit-card fraud, the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

The wrongful-death suit claims that the alleged abuse from Wyden\u2019s children led O\u2019Brien to take his own life. gofundme<\/p>\n

A police report filed by Bass Wyden accused O\u2019Brien of stealing about $650,000, but he was never arrested or charged, authorities said. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien died May 26, closing the case.<\/p>\n

But the law judge wrote that no \u201ctestimony or evidence\u201d shows O\u2019Brien was aware that he was about to be fired.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed by O\u2019Brien\u2019s widower\u00a0claims Bass Wyden spread false rumors about O\u2019Brien in a bid to keep him jobless, leaving him distraught.<\/p>\n

An e-mailed Post request for comment from Bass Wyden\u2019s representative and legal team about the labor decision was not returned.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Bass Real Estate previously called Maletzos\u2019s lawsuit \u201cbaseless\u201d and \u201cdeeply misguided.\u201d <\/p>\n

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The company\u2019s legal team has filed a motion to toss the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cO\u2019Brien was employed as a trusted personal assistant, with a range of responsibilities,\u201d the rep said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis misuse of that trust, and his misrepresentation of the events that took place while in that position, further reveal the depth of his moral corruption and manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New York judge found \u201ccredible evidence\u201d that Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden\u2019s kids terrorized their mom\u2019s personal assistant…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,132597,107512,336,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,132598,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-250264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-harassment","10":"tag-homophobia","11":"tag-lawsuits","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-strand-bookstore","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115256474145824591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}