Ex-OSU wrestlers speak out against Jordan’s Speaker bid over his refusal to protect them: report

10 October 2023

In an exclusive Tuesday, October 10 report from NBC News, four ex-Ohio State University (OSU) wrestlers warn that United States Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) should not be chosen to serve as next Speaker of the House.

The former wrestlers allege in a lawsuit against the university that during Jordan's stint as an assistant coach over two decades ago, he failed to protect them against a sexual predator — former OSU physician, Richard Strauss.

NBC notes:

Strauss, who died in 2005, was accused of preying on hundreds of men who attended the university from the 1970s through the 1990s, mostly under the guise of performing medical exams like hernia checks, which require a doctor to examine a patient's genitals.

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Ex-OSU wrestler Rocky Ratliff — also "an alleged Strauss victim who is also a lawyer representing some of the plaintiffs suing the school, said Jordan 'abandoned his former wrestlers in the Ohio State sexual abuse scandal and cover-up,'" according to NBC.

"He doesn't deserve to be House speaker," Dunyasha Yetts, one of the ex-OSU wrestlers said, emphasizing that the GOP leader's "hypocrisy is unbelievable."

Yetts said Jordan "still has to answer for what happened to us."

NBC reports:

Yetts, in the NBC News report, said Jordan had to have known. He said that when he went to Strauss with a thumb injury and the doctor tried to pull down his pants, he immediately told Jordan and then-head wrestling coach Russ Hellickson. He said they then went in to speak with Strauss.

Former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck said, "Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys? Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?"

Schyck added, "He put himself in this position. If early on he jumped in on our side and validated what we were saying, what everybody knew about what Dr. Strauss was doing to us, then this wouldn't be happening. But he decided early on, for reasons I still don't understand, that he was going to deny knowing anything about this. Now he's got no choice but to stick to this story that he had no idea what Dr. Strauss was doing, even though it's a lie."

NBC reports, "Another former OSU wrestler, who has only been identified as John Doe in the latest lawsuit against the university, said he believes Jordan 'is qualified for the position' but was reluctant to endorse him."

He said, "My problem with Jimmy is that he has been playing with words instead of supporting us. None of us used the words ‘sexual abuse’ when we talked about what Doc Strauss was doing to us, we just knew it was weird and Jimmy knew about it because we talked about it all the time in the locker room, at practices, everywhere."

NBC's full report is available at this link.

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