A lawsuit alleges that the children of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) harassed their mother’s personal assistant with homophobic taunts and “sexually explicit” comments, driving him to suicide.
Details of the lawsuit, reported by the New York Post, present a stark contrast to the record of Sen. Wyden, who has been a longtime advocate in Congress in support of gay, lesbian, and transgender issues.
For two years, ending in 2024, thirty-five-year-old Brandon O’Brien worked for Nancy Bass Wyden, the senator’s wife and owner of Strand Bookstore in Manhattan.
O’Brien’s tasks included driving the couple’s young children to school in New York City and watching them at Disney World, according to the Post.
The lawsuit was filed by O’Brien’s husband, Thomas Maltezos, against Bass Wyden and her company, Bass Real Estate LLC, in Manhattan’s Superior Court.
It alleges the disturbing behavior by the couple’s kids began about three months after O’Brien took the job in 2022, when the couple’s ten-year-old daughter “exposed herself” to the assistant and made explicit comments as she asked him about his “intimate” life.
Maltezos alleges in the suit that the mom did nothing about the incident.
Additionally, Wydens’ teenage son berated O’Brien with homophobic slurs such as “faggot” and “zest kitten,” the suit claims. The boy also allegedly threatened that his football team would “rape” the assistant.
The son’s behavior was so out of control that his mom once had to “mace” her son, but inadvertently maced O’Brien in the process, according to court papers.
Calling the lawsuit “baseless and deeply misguided,” lawyers for Bass Wyden have sought to have Maltezos’ lawsuit dismissed, court records show. They contend it is a cover for O’Brien’s own “serious misconduct,” allegedly a “pattern of theft” from the household.
When O’Brien finally quit in frustration a year ago, Bass Wyden, 64, filed a report with the NYPD the next day, “accusing him of stealing $650,000 in credit card and other thefts, authorities said.”
That began a pattern of harassment by the prominent businesswoman who allegedly spread “false rumors” about him, the suit alleges.
O’Brien committed suicide in late May, seven months after he left the job. Authorities dropped the theft case after the suicide. Lawyers for Maltezos argued the accusation was false.
“The allegations against the senator’s wife are shocking, disturbing, and cruel — no person should ever be subject to this level of harassment, much less in the workplace,” Maltezos’ attorneys said in a statement.
Sen. Ron Wyden, 76, was elected to Congress in 1981, and he married Bass Wyden in 2005. “The couple has three kids in addition to Ron Wyden’s two adult children from his first marriage,” according to the Post.
The Post reported that “the senator and his wife have a home in Portland,” but Bass Wyden’s social media shows she visits New York to attend to the business her family founded 98 years ago.
Sen. Wyden, a progressive Democrat, has been a frequent critic of President Donald Trump over immigration, the Epstein case, and DOGE staffing cuts.
Ironically, considering the lawsuit and his children’s alleged homophobic statements, in late 1995, Wyden became the first U.S. Senate candidate to publicly support same sex marriage.
He also introduced a bill in June calling for sanctions on foreign countries that violate “human rights of LGBTQI+ communities” around the world.
He most recently garnered widespread television coverage battling with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. at an oversight hearing this month.
During the hearing Wyden claimed that “every day” Kennedy has been in office, he has taken action that “endangers the health and welfare of American families.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
