West Hollywood may soon become the first city in the LA region to formally call for Casey Wasserman to resign as chairman of the 2028 Olympic organizing committee.
Councilmembers Chelsea Byers and John Erickson said Tuesday they’ll introduce a resolution on March 2 urging Wasserman to step down and pushing the LA28 executive board to hold him accountable for his past email exchanges with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
The duo made the announcement during a news conference at West Hollywood Park, where they were joined by survivor advocates and co-founders of a newly launched political advocacy group called the Sexual Predator Accountability Institute. Erickson said that if the resolution passes, West Hollywood would be the first city in the region to take an official position on the controversy. He’s not being shy about what he wants other elected officials to do next.
“Casey Wasserman must resign, and I call upon every elected leader in Los Angeles County and across this nation because that’s what it’s going to take for him to resign,” Erickson said. “West Hollywood will lead the way.”
Byers framed the resolution as being consistent with West Hollywood’s history of standing with survivors of sexual violence. With the city set to host activations and events tied to the 2028 Games, she said West Hollywood won’t look the other way.
“We refuse to look the other way while the Games are fronted by a chair whose own emails with a convicted trafficker are now a part of the public record,” Byers said.
She also took aim at the internal review conducted by outside law firm O’Melveny & Myers at LA28’s request, saying it “may satisfy lawyers, but it does nothing for those in our community who want to know that this region is not promoting the old boys club of impunity.”
Not good enough.
The calls for Casey Wasserman’s removal have been building for weeks. Three LA City Council members and County Supervisor Janice Hahn had already called on him to step down, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass broke her silence on the issue Monday, saying that while she can’t force him out, “my opinion is that he should step down.” The International Olympic Committee has so far stayed out of it, with IOC spokesman Mark Adams telling reporters Tuesday that the matter is in the hands of the LA28 board.
Wasserman’s name cane to light when the DOJ released a batch of Epstein files that contained a lot of email exchanges between Wasserman and Maxwell. Wasserman has apologized for the correspondence and denied having a personal or business relationship with Epstein. The LA28 board backed him after the O’Melveny review, saying his only known interaction with Epstein was a single flight on the financier’s plane more than two decades ago during a Clinton Foundation humanitarian mission to Africa.
