AVERY YANG FEB 12, 2020
Ohio representative and former Ohio State University wrestling coach Jim Jordan aided and abetted in the university’s cover-up of sexual abuse within the program, a former team captain said in front of Ohio state legislators on Wednesday.
“Jim Jordan called me crying, groveling, begging me to go against my brother, begging me, crying for a half-hour,” DiSabato said Wednesday. “That’s the kind of cover-up that’s going on there.”
Adam DiSabato, captain of the team during the early 1990s, told members of the Ohio House Civil Justice Committee that Jordan and other officials ignored former Ohio State doctor Richard Strauss’s sexual abuse of wrestlers from 1979 to 1997. DiSabato said that Jordan and other team officials knew about open-shower facilities that facilitated sexual harassment and abuse of team wrestlers. Jordan has previously denied the allegation.
Wednesday’s testimony is a part of a hearing on legislation that would permit survivors of Strauss’s abuse to sue the university for damages. Currently, the statute of limitations disallows them from doing so.
A university study found that Strauss abused at least 177 people during his tenure as the wrestling team’s doctor. Strauss was never charged and died by suicide in 2005.
A former Ohio State wrestler told the university’s lawyers in 2018 that, “Based on testimony from victim athletes from each of the aforementioned varsity sports, we estimate that Strauss sexually assaulted and/or raped a minimum of 1,500/2,000 athletes at OSU.”
Read the full article here: https://www.si.com/more-sports/2020/02/12/jim-jordan-accused-cover-up-sexual-abuse-ohio-state
