Chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, Casey Wasserman, is facing calls from local politicians to resign from his position after his name appeared in a collection of Epstein files released on Jan. 31.
Wasserman has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Since the release of the files, a number of local politicians have called for Wasserman to resign from his position as chairman of LA28, the organization responsible for the layout of the 2028 Summer Olympics, which Los Angeles will host.
At least nine politicians have called for Wasserman’s resignation, including Councilmember Nithya Raman, who announced her candidacy for mayor Saturday.
“Los Angeles cannot trust our financial future to someone connected with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” City Controller Kenneth Mejia wrote in a statement to Annenberg Media, the same statement that he posted on X on Feb. 3.
A L.A. Times report detailed Wasserman’s involvement with the deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his long-time girlfriend and associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of child sex trafficking in connection with Epstein.
Wasserman acknowledged exchanging emails with Maxwell more than two decades ago but has said he had no involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
Emails in the files show that Wasserman corresponded with former President Bill Clinton in 2002, when Clinton invited Wasserman on a humanitarian trip to Africa. Wasserman and Clinton traveled on Epstein’s private jet with Epstein, Maxwell, Wasserman’s then-wife Laura Ziffren and actor Kevin Spacey, according to the released documents.
The trip occurred three years before the first criminal allegations of sexual abuse were brought up against Epstein in 2005, NPR reported. Wasserman was not connected to any of Epstein’s actions and told the L.A. Times that he had not interacted with Epstein outside of the trip.
However, Wasserman maintained a relationship with Maxwell after the trip, exchanging a series of racy emails in 2003, one year after the journey to Africa.
“So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” Wasserman wrote to Maxwell in March of that year.
“Where are you, I miss you,” Wasserman wrote a couple of weeks later.
In a statement sent out to BBC News and other outlets, Wasserman apologized for his correspondence with Maxwell.
“I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell, which took place over two decades ago,” Wasserman wrote, “long before her horrific crimes came to light.”
Despite the calls for Wasserman to step aside, the International Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee have made clear that Wasserman has their full support.
“I have more confidence today in LA2028’s operational capabilities, its leadership, the quality of what it’s doing and how well it has executed than I have at any point in time,” USOPC chair Gene Sykes said in a news conference on Thursday.
L.A. City Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez, Hugo Soto-Martínez and Imelda Padilla have all publicly called for Wasserman’s removal from the chairman position, according to the L.A. Times. Annenberg Media reached out to Rodriguez for further comment and was directed to an interview she conducted with Spectrum News on Thursday.
“This is supposed to be the best of humanity, and you’re talking about the chairman being associated with an individual that was a co-conspirator in the largest international sex-trafficking scandal in the world,” Rodriguez said in the interview.
County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath is also among those calling for the chairman’s removal.
“Victims and survivors have called for these files to be released in the hope that people of conscience will take action,” Horvath said in a statement to Annenberg Media, which was previously shared with the LA Times. “Either being included in the Epstein files is disqualifying for leadership, or it’s not.”
Horvath added, “What does that mean when the organization is led by an intimate friend of a convicted human trafficker?”
Wasserman, the Wasserman agency and LA28 did not respond to requests for comment as of publication.