Wyden wife seeks secrecy for suit accusing kids of harassing employee who quit, committed suicide

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), wife Nancy Bass Wyden and children. (Source: Nancy Bass Wyden’s Instagram page)

An attorney for Nancy Bass Wyden, wife of Oregon’s senior U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D), has filed a motion to remove from public scrutiny a complaint filed by a New York man who alleges his husband was driven to commit suicide eight months after leaving his employment as a personal assistant for Bass Wyden, who owns the famous Strand Bookstore in Manhattan and real estate in New York City, following sexual harassment by Wyden and Bass Wyden’s two children, whom the deceased husband drove to school and otherwise cared for as part of his job.

Thomas Maltezos filed the lawsuit, first reported by the New York Post yesterday, September 12, against Bass Wyden and Bass Real Estate, LLC, for which Bass Wyden is President and CEO, according to the complaint. Bass Wyden and Wyden married September 2005, and have two minor children, whose behavior toward Maltezos’s deceased husband, Brandon O’Brien, is the subject of the suit.

The complaint, which for the moment is a public document, alleges O’Brien suffered “repeated acts of sexual harassment and gender discrimination by Wyden’s children, but Ms. Bass Wyden and Mr. Wyden took no corrective action to provide a safe and harassment free working environment for Mr. O’Brien,” in violation of New York law.

Bass Wyden and the children live in New York; Senator Wyden has said he splits time between Washington, D.C., New York City and Portland, where he owns a home. Wyden has represented Oregon in Congress since 1981.

The complaint alleges the Wydens’ then 10-year-old daughter engaged in “highly inappropriate sexual behavior directed at Mr. O’Brien,” including “exposing herself” to him when he was driving her to school.

It further alleges the Wydens’ then teenage son called O’Brien “faggot,” “homo,” “fag bag,” “zest kitten,” and “butt f_cker.” According to the complaint, in March 2023, the son’s “harassment escalated to physically aggressive and violent acts which included throwing objects at Mr. O’Brien.” It alleges Bass Wyden, in response to her son’s violent conduct, “maced her son to restrain him but inadvertently maced Mr. O’Brien.”

The complaint alleges O’Brien made Bass Wyden aware of the objectionable behavior by her children, and Bass Wyden either dismissed the complaints outright or failed to take immediate corrective action. It says O’Brien was forced to quit his job September 30, 2024, due to "the egregious sexual harassing and discriminatory conduct the Wyden’s [sic] minor children subjected Mr. O’Brien to for two years, and without Ms. Bass Wyden or Mr. Wyden taking any corrective action[.]”

After leaving his employ with Bass Wyden, the complaint alleges O’Brien applied for unemployment, which Bass Wyden unsuccessfully appealed. According to The Post, the day after O’Brien quit working for Bass Wyden, she filed a report with the New York Police Department accusing O’Brien of $650,000 in credit card and other theft.

O’Brien took his own life May 26, 2025.

In a statement to The Post, Bass Real Estate called the lawsuit “baseless:”

The lawsuit is “baseless and deeply misguided” and “riddled with false accusations,” a Bass Real Estate spokesperson said in a statement. “It appears to be a continued effort to deflect attention from O’Brien’s own serious misconduct, including a documented pattern of theft from those he once worked for.”

Friday, an attorney for Bass Wyden and Bass Real Estate filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit and to remove the complaint from public view or, in the alternative, to remove the children’s initials “and references to them as Defendant Wyden’s children” from the complaint. A hearing on the motion to seal is scheduled for October 30, 2025.

I contacted the spokesperson for Senator Wyden early this morning, asking for a comment regarding the lawsuit generally and the motion to make secret the complaint specifically. I have not received a comment as of 2 pm today, which I informed the spokesperson would be the deadline.

Senator Wyden last year introduced a bill to “increase transparency to improve public trust in American courts,” by increasing the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to 15, and requiring them to make public their tax returns and votes on lower court matters, according to a press release from his office.