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Court records paint a troubling picture. At one point, Wyden’s wife reportedly maced her own son during an outburst to control his behavior — but in the chaos, she accidentally sprayed O’Brien too.
Even worse, the senator’s teenage son is accused of hurling homophobic slurs and making vile threats. According to the lawsuit, he once told O’Brien that “his football team would rape him” and repeatedly referred to him using derogatory nicknames such as “little zest kitten.”
Senator Wyden and his wife have denied wrongdoing and are trying to get the lawsuit dismissed. Through their lawyers, they claim O’Brien left the job because he was about to be fired for “theft” and racked up “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in unauthorized expenses.
But earlier this year, Administrative Law Judge Lorraine Ferrigno sided with O’Brien during a dispute over unemployment benefits. According to the NY Post, the judge noted that Bass Wyden did not challenge many of O’Brien’s claims about the children’s behavior.
Text messages reviewed in court revealed the Wyden children repeatedly taunting O’Brien. In one message, the son called him an “actual zest kitten,” while another read, “Can you please order me food, my little zest bunny?”
On other occasions, Bass Wyden admitted she reprimanded her son after he used the slur “f****t” against O’Brien.
Judge Ferrigno wrote:
“The credible evidence establishes that [O’Brien] 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.”
The judge added that “there does not seem to be much disagreement that the employer’s children, more specifically her son, harassed [O’Brien].”
Maltezos, who says he witnessed some of the bullying firsthand on trips with the family, is now pursuing damages against Bass Wyden and her real estate company.
For him, this case is about accountability — and about making sure no one else endures what his husband went through before his tragic death.
