Lawsuit: Wyden wife didn't notice stolen $655k

Nancy Bass Wyden, wife of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, sued widower of her former personal assistant a month after he sued her claiming the Wyden children sexually harassed his late husband to death

Excerpt from Nancy Bass Wyden’s lawsuit alleging her former personal assistant, since deceased, and his husband stole funds and items with a total value of $655,000.

Nancy Bass Wyden, wife of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), was oblivious to her personal assistant stealing $655,000 from her over two years in the form of unauthorized bank withdrawals, credit card fraud and theft of items from Bass Wyden’s New York City home, according to a lawsuit filed on her bahalf in October.

In the lawsuit, Bass Wyden alleges Brandon O’Brien, who worked as her personal assistant from June 2022 to September 2024, began stealing from her in August 2022, but she didn’t notice the missing funds or property until September 2024. Oregon Roundup Foundation is the first Oregon news outlet to report on Bass Wyden’s lawsuit. The New York Post reported on it in October.

Bass Wyden contends O’Brien stole $584,000 from her Fidelity investment account using a stamp bearing her signature, $14,000 in personal items from her home, ranging from an emerald pendant to an unopened Star Wars Monopoly game and nearly $37,000 in unauthorized purchases using Bass Wyden’s Saks 5th Avenue credit card. Bass Wyden further alleges O’Brien stole rare books owned by The Strand bookstore, a New York institution that’s been in Bass Wyden’s family for a century.

An excerpt from a lawsuit filed by Bass Wyden in which she alleges her former personal assistant stole $655,000 from her over two years

The full scope of Bass Wyden’s wealth is not public. She filed a lawsuit, still pending, against a New York law firm she alleges failed to fund a charitable trust established for her mother prior to her death in 2020. Bass Wyden alleges in her suit the firm had been directed to put $10 million, a portion of her mother’s estate, in the trust.

The online public record tracking site Quiver Quantitative estimated Senator Wyden was worth $20.7 million as of August 10, 2025 based on publicly disclosed investments.

Bass Wyden says she confronted O’Brien September 26, 2024, when she learned O’Brien had written a check to himself in the amount of $7,000. O’Brien quit his job September 30. As previously reported in September by Oregon Roundup, Bass Wyden argued to a New York administrative law judge O’Brien quit only because he knew he would fired over the alleged theft. The judge found, instead, O’Brien quit his job due to “homophobic text messages from the teenage son of his boss,” Bass Wyden.

O’Brien committed suicide May 26, 2025, eight months after leaving his employment with Bass Wyden. O’Brien’s widower, Thomas Maltezos sued Bass Wyden and her real estate investment firm, Bass Real Estate, in September, alleging O’Brien quit his employment and ultimately committed suicide because of “repeated acts of sexual harassment and gender discrimination by Wyden’s children,” in response to which “Ms. Bass Wyden and Mr. [Senator] Wyden took no corrective action[.]”

According to Maltezos’ lawsuit and the findings of the New York judge, the Wydens’ minor children called O’Brien “f*ggot,” “homo,” “f*g bag,” “zest kitten,” and “butt f*cker” while he was employed by Bass Wyden. The judge, who was adjudicating only O’Brien’s claim for unemployment, which Bass Wyden opposed, found the Wydens’ son, then around 15 years old, texted O’Brien September 29, 2024, “a Tik Tok clip with a very feminine looking man with the caption ‘my mother always taught me to put things back where I found them.’ Under that text was an emoji text of bloody fingers.” That text and video, the judge ruled, caused O’Brien to quit his job the next morning.

Bass Wyden responded to Maltezos’ suit by filing motions to dismiss and to make the filings in the case unavailable to the public. Those motions remain pending. According to her lawsuit, Wyden Bass knew of O’Brien’s alleged theft for a year before filing against Maltezos, a month after he sued her.

Reyna Lubin, an attorney representing Maltezos, wrote in an emailed statement to Oregon Roundup Foundation the Bass Wyden theft lawsuit “is nothing more than retaliation for our client’s refusal to abandon his wrongful death and employment discrimination claims on behalf of his late husband . . . This is a calculated effort to damage [O’Brien’s] reputation for standing up against discrimination[.]”

Senator Wyden, 76, says he lives in Washington, D.C., New York City and Portland, Oregon. He has served in Congress since 1980 and in the Senate since 1996. The dueling lawsuits allege events occurring mostly in New York, some in Florida and none in Oregon.

Senator Ron Wyden delivers groceries at a Bend nonprofit Friday (photo from Wyden’s Twitter/X feed).

Senator Wyden’s office has failed to respond to requests from Oregon Roundup for comments on the New York legal fight involving his wife, and everything else we’ve tried to ask them.

Oregon Roundup Foundation created this article. ORF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to covering Oregon political and government news. Media outlets are welcome to use this article for free with attribution of the author and Oregon Roundup Foundation.