Rejecting a Bizarre Double Standard
The Calls for LA 28 Olympics Committee Chair Casey Wasserman to Resign His Position Represent a Bizarre Double Standard That we Should Reject
In 1970, Bonnie Jean Colwell, an 18 year old woman from the Sacramento foothills who attended Sierra College, met her first serious boyfriend, a fellow named Joe who was a student at Cal State University Sacramento.1
While Joe was kinda odd and clearly had some issues (he used to insist that they listen to the Doors whenever they had sex), she fell for him anyway.
When Joe asked for her hand in marriage, she said yes.
Despite having no money as a college student and not coming from a particularly financially well-off family, Joe had somehow bought her an expensive engagement ring. His effort really impressed Bonnie Jean.
But it wasn’t long before Bonnie Jean realized that Joe was not really her kind of guy.
In the 1990’s, comedian David Alan Grier advised women to do their homework to find a good man - “run a full credit check, run a full criminal background check, interview all his baby mommas, don’t just drop him off at the Methadone Clinic, go inside! Meet the people!”
But even decades before Grier’s sound advice, Bonnie Jean still did her homework on the guy. In 1971, she broke it off with Joe and gave him back that expensive ring.2
Done with Joe, Bonnie Jean moved on with her life. She went on to have a successful career, marry another man, have children, retire, and write a fun travel blog focused on her life as an American attempting to purchase property in Italy.
She all but forgot about Joe.
That is until one day in April 2018, almost 50 years after she’d broken up with Joe. Bonnie Jean, now known as Bonnie Ueltzen, was waiting to board an international flight in Italy when she received a phone call from the Sacramento District Attorney’s Office.
They had finally arrested the infamous Golden State Killer. The most prolific serial criminal offender in California history, the Golden State Killer raped at least 50 women in Northern California in the mid to late 1970s and murdered at least 13 people (while attempting to murder at least 3 others) between 1973 and 1986.3
In news that shocked Ueltzen, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office informed her that the Golden State Killer and her ex-fiancé, Joe, were one in the same.
Ueltzen would find her name thrust into the media limelight as people began to learn of her existence and her connection to the Golden State Killer.
Although he had not committed the rapes or murders while they were together, Ueltzen found herself linked to his crimes anyway. Apparently, during a few of his rapes, the Golden State Killer had uttered out “Oh Bonnie, why did you do this to me?”4
But while Ueltzen’s name became associated with the Golden State Killer, the public did not fault her for his crimes. While some speculated that the breakup might have motivated Joe to become the Golden State Killer, the suggestion that she was somehow responsible for his horrendous actions was quickly rejected.
She did not help him commit his crimes and she did not know about them while they occurred.5 At worst, she had unwittingly received a stolen engagement ring, which she had given back in 1971.6
Although she gained unwanted notoriety from what happened, she did not suffer economically. Although she gained much unwanted notoriety, she received an exclusive contract with HBO to tell her story.
For that matter, the victims of the Golden State Killer did not blame Ueltzen and many considered Ueltzen to be one of their fellow victims, including her in their survivor’s groups.
In a powerful moment during the victim impact statements, one rape victim addressing the Court, Jane Carson Sandler, invited Ueltzen to stand up and be recognized. She did so, taking off her mask and glaring at Joe.
Ueltzen’s treatment by the public raises an interesting question.
What if Ueltzen wasn’t retired with a blog but was instead a public figure who ran some sort of major public enterprise?
For example, what if Ueltzen was the Chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Committee?
Would celebrities, victims rights advocates, and elected officials demand that Ueltzen step down from her position as Olympics Committee Chair simply because she had once been engaged to the Golden State Killer nearly a half century earlier?
Would the public decide that Ueltzen’s one time attraction to a man who turned out to be a monster make her morally culpable?
Would anyone claim that part of getting “accountability” for the victims of the Golden State included punishing Ueltzen?
Surely, most would reject such suggestions and conclude that such sentiments were completely irrational and backwards if not downright stupid.
Furthermore, while some might argue that the news of her one-time engagement to the Golden State Killer was a “distraction”, most would recognize the inherent unfairness. If forced to resign, she would forfeit her position solely on the basis of the actions of another for which she had no control, did not participate or assist, did not condone, and had no knowledge of at the time they occurred.
The public treatment of Bonnie Jean Ueltzen is not being applied to current LA 2028 Olympics Committee Chair Casey Wasserman, whose name recently surfaced in the release of the Epstein Files.
Numerous elected officials have called for him to resign as chair of the LA 2028 Olympics Committee. He has also lost several high profile clients from his business which represents numerous entertainers, who have publicly denounced him. their departures have forced Wasserman to put his company up for sale.
Now, I don’t know Wasserman personally so I cannot attest to whether he is a good or bad person.7 I haven’t followed the L.A. Olympics closely so I cannot weigh in on whether he’s good at his job of running the Olympics.
But that’s irrelevant as to whether he should resign from his position on account of being in the Epstein Files.
There isn’t any actual misconduct that Wasserman has committed that would warrant him resigning.
Wasserman’s name only surfaced in the Epstein Files because in 2002, Wasserman exchanged flirtatious emails with convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell who assisted Jeffrey Epstein in his heinous sex trafficking scheme.
The emails don’t refer to Epstein’s or Maxwell’s criminal activities or even hint at them. They’re just flirtatious emails between two consenting adults. To quote Saturday Night Live’s Lisa From Temecula, Wasserman was “doin’ the MOST tryna get some butt” from Maxwell.8
Based on currently known information,9 Wasserman is not suspected of (1) having sex with minors, (2) participating in Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking of minors, (3) knowing about Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking of minors, or (4) helping either Epstein or Maxwell cover up their crimes.10
Nor did Wasserman ever attempt to help Epstein rehabilitate his public image, which is something that some prominent “Me-Too advocates” apparently did.11
All he is accused of is having bad taste in potential sexual partners, having at one time been attracted to Ghislaine Maxwell.
Having bad taste in potential sexual partners is not a crime. Further, if Wasserman and Maxwell engaged in consensual sexual relations in private, that’s not a crime either.12 It’s a fundamental constitutional right.13
Frankly, conflating sexual activity between consenting adults in private with rape and sexual assault is a disservice to the many survivors of sexual crimes, who were often overlooked in the past. It also does a huge disservice to the MeToo Movement.
From a MeToo perspective, it was rather flabbergasting to read, in There’s a new villain in Casey Wasserman’s Epstein saga —Jeffrey Katzenberg by Peter Kiefer and Tatiana Siegel, that some who are demanding Wasserman’s removal want to replace him with former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
To quote Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, “Really?”14
Garcetti was credibly accused of allowing his Deputy Chief of Staff (a man who had run a four million dollar independent expenditure crucial to getting him elected Mayor in 2013) to sexually harass and assault numerous subordinates. A former member of Garcetti’s security detail filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him that the City of Los Angeles ultimately settled for a large amount.
The idea of replacing Wasserman, who is not accused of having knowledge of any malfeasance or crime, let alone participating in it, with someone who likely allowed rampant sexual harassment to occur under his watch, as some sort of “justice for survivors” is completely illogical.
As Josh Barro has said on the topic of Wasserman, this is “insane”.15
But more importantly, the treatment of Wasserman reflects a bizarre double standard.
People make bad choices in romantic and sexual partners all the time. It’s a common feature of life.
Bonnie Jean Ueltzen got engaged to a man who turned out to be a monster. But she was never involved in his crimes and walked away from him.
Casey Wasserman once sexually flirted with a woman who similarly turned out to be a monster. He similarly was never involved in her crimes and walked away from her.
I fail to see any significant difference between the two of them. Their extraordinarily different treatment is honestly a mystery to me and represents a bizarre double standard that people should reject.
We should be consistent. If Casey Wasserman is truly a bad actor who needs to be removed from his position as Chair of the LA 2028 Olympics Committee, he should be removed upon the discovery of those bad acts that he has actually committed. Not because he once flirted with Ghislaine Maxwell.
The author of this article is an attorney licensed to practice in the State of California and the District of Columbia. This article and all of the works on this Substack page are statements of the opinions of the author, only, and do not constitute legal advice; they are not intended to be relied upon by any individual or entity in any transaction or other legal matter, past, pending, or future. A paid subscription to this Substack page supports the author’s scholarship and provides access to research that the author has compiled, but does not establish an attorney-client relationship. The author does not accept unsolicited requests for legal advice or representation, and this Substack page is not intended as legal advertising. The opinions expressed on this Substack page reflect the personal views of the author only.
When Bonnie Jean called off the engagement, Joe was not too pleased. Desperate for one last chance at romance, he made a last ditch effort to forcibly kidnap her from her home at gunpoint and force her to marry him in Nevada, a crime that was foiled by Bonnie Jean’s father and went unreported to law enforcement. Needless to say, the incident reaffirmed for Bonnie Jean that Joe was just not her kind of guy and she’d made the right choice in calling off the engagement.
In the late 1970’s, when still known as the “East Area Rapist”, the Golden State Killer terrorized upscale neighborhoods in the Sacramento and Bay Area suburbs. He taunted the public through messages sent through the media and evaded even the strongest police dragnets, sometimes telling cops where he’d strike and doing so despite police presence. He didn’t just rape but often spent hours in a home, tormenting and torturing victims. He also placed victims under extensive surveillance before breaking in, often removing bullets from guns and unlocking doors so that he could enter homes unscathed.
After initially raping women who were alone, he raped women with men present in the home. He infamously had the women tie the men up at gunpoint and then placed dishes on their back. He would separate the man and the woman and take the woman into another room. He would inform the man that if he heard any rattling, he would kill both of them.
When a man stood up at a Sacramento townhall to say he didn’t believe that women were being raped with their boyfriend or husband present, the Golden State Killer made that man and his wife his very next victims. When a local dentist in South Sacramento put up a large cash reward for his capture, he raped a babysitter a block away from the dentist’s office.
One time, he even climbed on the roof of the lead Sacramento County investigator’s house, lowered himself down backwards, and shined a flashlight in the room of the investigator’s 9 year old son.
In 1979, he seemingly disappeared. But he actually hadn’t. He just went underground. went on to quietly murder at least 10 people in upscale southern California suburbs. He had already murdered two others in Sacramento (a couple out walking their dogs accidentally spotted him in the process of beginning a rape). He also murdered a man (in addition to three others he murdered in his Sacramento days).
One of his more infamous murders was of Lyman Smith, the chair of the Ventura County Democratic Party who was being considered for a judgeship, and his wife Charlene, who was also raped. It was the DNA sample from Charlene that investigators would later use to identify the killer. Another infamous double murder was of Keith and Patricia Harrington (she was also raped), inside of a guard gated community in Laguna Niguel, CA. Harrington’s family would later put up the money to amend California’s Constitution to require that all convicted felons give DNA samples to the authorities.
The murders in Southern California were not connected to each other until 1996 (his last known murder was 1986) with the advent of DNA evidence. Until then, all the murders had alternative suspects and were not linked. Only in 2001 was the Original Night Stalker discovered to also be the East Area Rapist. Journalist Michelle MacNamara, who was married to comedian and actor Patton Oswalt before her tragic death in 2016, gave him the name “Golden State Killer”.
This information was never released to the public until after the Golden State Killer had been unmasked and caught. Even if somehow that odd reference would have been a tipping point for Ueltzen to report her ex-fiance to authorities (which is a highly questionable proposition), Ueltzen could not be faulted for not helping authorities as she was completely unaware that this had occurred.
To avoid some confusion, the Golden State Killer was married to a different woman, Sharon Huddle, during the time of his crimes. In fact, they were still married when he was arrested for his crimes. There has been some question as to her
When he was arrested, the Golden State Killer was discovered to be the infamous Visalia Ransacker and the Cordoba Cat Burglar. Unaware at the time, Ueltzen now figured that the expensive engagement ring that he had given her was stolen.
For more information about Casey Wasserman and his efforts running the Los Angeles Olympics, please read Lord of the Rings: Casey Wasserman’s Olympic Odyssey by journalist and writer Peter Kiefer.
I stress the term “currently known information” because I do not condone, defend, or attempt to justify any of the behavior of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell or Donald Trump. I am not Megyn Kelly. Certainly, if facts emerge that show either participation on the part of Wasserman or constructive knowledge that he failed to respond to.
It might be worth noting too (and this isn’t to suggest any fault on the part of Ueltzen) that Wasserman was never engaged to Maxwell, never witnessed her commit a crime, and never was one of Maxwell’s crime victims himself. These are all things that might have tipped him off in form as to what she did.
According to reporting by Peter Kiefer and Tatiana Siegel in Founding member of Time’s Up movement advised Jeffrey Epstein two years before launching the anti-sexual harassment organization, Michelle Kydd Lee, the founder of the Times Up organization, was secretly advising Jeffrey Epstein on how to improve his image. This was done after he had been convicted for child sex trafficking. The emails don’t show casual friendship or some sort of dating relationship, they show her assisting him in looking better to the public, presumably for the purpose of evading punishment and continuing his illegal activities with minors.
This is not just hypocritical but downright deplorable behavior.
