Dem Senator’s Top Aide’s Suspicious Suicide Erupts Into Massive Scandal
A bombshell lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court has leveled explosive allegations against the family of Sen. Ron Wyden (D–OR) — one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington — accusing them of tormenting a gay personal assistant so severely that it drove him to suicide.
The suit, filed by the husband of the late Brandon O’Brien, 35, targets Wyden’s wife, Nancy Bass Wyden, and her business, Bass Real Estate LLC, which manages Manhattan’s historic Strand Bookstore. It paints a disturbing picture of emotional abuse, sexual humiliation, and retaliation that allegedly unfolded over two years while O’Brien worked as Bass Wyden’s assistant.
Wyden, 81, who chairs key Senate committees and has spent decades in the political establishment, is now facing intense scrutiny as his family’s private behavior comes under public light.
According to the lawsuit, O’Brien was hired in June 2022 and routinely served as a personal aide to the senator’s wife — managing errands, coordinating events, and even caring for the couple’s children. His husband, Thomas Maltezos, claims the Wydens’ children subjected O’Brien to relentless verbal and sexual harassment.
The court filing alleges Wyden’s 10-year-old daughter made “sexually explicit” comments about O’Brien’s sexuality, exposed herself to him, and asked invasive questions about his personal life. Meanwhile, their teenage son allegedly called him a “f****t” and a “zest kitten,” and even threatened that “his football team would rape him.”
In one shocking episode described in the complaint, Nancy Bass Wyden allegedly attempted to use mace to restrain her son — but instead accidentally maced O’Brien. Maltezos says he personally witnessed the chaos during a Disneyland trip, calling the Wydens’ children “deranged” in the filing.
Despite repeated complaints, the lawsuit accuses Bass Wyden of ignoring the harassment and later retaliating against O’Brien after he quit on September 30, 2024. That same day, she reportedly filed a police report accusing him of $650,000 in fraudulent spending, hired a private investigator, and allegedly sought to “spread false rumors” about him to professional contacts.
O’Brien was left devastated. Less than a year later, on May 26, he took his own life. Authorities have since dropped the theft investigation.
“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,” O’Brien’s family attorneys, Eric Baum and Reyna Lubin, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Bass Real Estate called the lawsuit “baseless and deeply misguided,” claiming it was “riddled with false accusations” and intended to “deflect attention from O’Brien’s own serious misconduct, including a documented pattern of theft from those he once worked for.”
Wyden, a self-described progressive and longtime Democratic fixture, married Nancy Bass Wyden in 2005. But this lawsuit presents a drastically different image — one of privilege, power, and cruelty behind closed doors.
As the case proceeds, it threatens to erupt into a major political scandal for a party already plagued by accusations of hypocrisy and moral decay at the top.