It is expected that the representative Jim Jordan de Ohio, one of the main inquisitors of the Republican Party in Congress, will be deposed on Friday about the accusations that he could not protect the fighters who once trained at the State University of Ohio from a sexual predator, four plaintiffs in the demands against the university told NBC News.
Jordan, who was the wrestling coach at the University from 1986 to 1994 before entering politics, has repeatedly and publicly denied any knowledge that the team doctor, Richard Strauss, was taking advantage of the athletes.
It will be the first time that Jordan will be questioned under oath as lawyers representing hundreds of OSU students, both athletes and non -athletes, who are demanding school for damage to the Federal Court in the southern district of Ohio. Jordan is not a defendant, but he is referred to some of the demands claiming that he was aware of abuse.
Jordan, the powerful president of the Judicial Committee of the Chamber and a firm ally of President Donald Trump, is known for his combative interrogation of witnesses and to avoid demand jackets during the same.
He failed to comment, Jordan’s spokesman Russell Dye published a variation of the statement that Jordan’s team has been using since July 2018, when three former OSU fighters told NBC News that Jordan was lying when he said he did not know that Strauss bothered them under the fusion of giving physical exams.
“As everyone knows, President Jordan never saw or heard any abuse, and if he had done it, he would have treated him,” said the statement.
Mike Disabato, who fought for Jordan and was the first former OSU student who publicly accused him of having turned a blind eye to the abuse that Strauss inflicted on him and his teammates, said he does not expect Jordan to say more than he already has.
“I guess he will triple and follow the same script that continued in 2018 when he followed Fox and denied knowing about any abuse, denied having been told of any abuse, never heard the word ‘abuse’,” Disbeato said.
Disabato referred to an interview with Bret Baier by Fox News in which Jordan also insisted that he did not hear any joke from the costume about Strauss.
Even so, said Disabato, who previously reached an agreement with OSU, expects Jordan to “finally come out and admit that he knew that Strauss was doing unnecessary prostate exams, making unnecessary genital exams, taking multiple showers with athletes, all while being used by a university funded by the state of Ohio.”
Jordan will sit for a statement approximately one month after the launch of an HBO Max documentary about the Strauss scandal called “Ohio Surviving State”, in which one of the fighters who once trained called him a liar.
Another survivor of Strauss, Steve Snyder-Hill, said he will see the statement on Friday at his lawyer in Columbus. While he is not a former athlete, Snyder-Hill is one of OSU’s alumni who demand university.
“I hope you go to bed under oath,” said Snyder-Hill. “I don’t know a more pleasant way to say it.”
Snyder-Hill said Strauss abused him in a campus clinic in 1995. He said that what the doctor was doing to young people under the appearance of giving physical exams, finally became an open secret throughout the campus, extending beyond the costumes of the athletes.
“Jordan had a stop two of Strauss, and Jordan says he didn’t know?” Snyder-Hill said. “That is difficult to believe.”
Strauss, who died in 2005, worked in OSU from 1978 to 1998.
Promoted by the accusations of Disabato and other former OSU fighters, the University agreed to an independent investigation carried out by the law firm of Perkins Coie, which concluded in 2019 that the coaches and athletics administrators knew for two decades that Strauss was bothering the male athletes and other students, but failed to sound the alarm or stop it.
The former Jordan Communications Director, Ian Fury, insisted in 2019 that the report acquitted Jordan. All the names of coaches and administrators were written in the version of the report published to the public.
Fury cited as proof of a line in the report that said that the investigators “did not identify any other contemporary documentary evidence that indicated that the members of the OSU coaching staff, including the main coaches or the assistant coaches, received or knew the complaints about the inappropriate sexual behavior of Strauss.”
Since the launch of the report, OSU has said that he has paid $ 60 million in liquidation money and his former president apologized publicly with the abuse of “each person he suffered” at the hands of Strauss.
Several of the demands mention Jordan by name.
Even facing at least five active demands of 236 men who claim that Strauss also bothered them, Osu, who had apologized to the victims of Strauss and had reported in 2019 that Strauss committed 1,429 sexual aggressions and 47 violations, returned his previous position in October 2023 and denied having admitted any mistake. The agreements they paid were without admission of responsibility and were reached through mediation.
Osu also argued that the statute of limitations in the case against had been exhausted.
But in June 2023, the Supreme Court refused to reconsider a ruling from the lower court that said that students should be allowed to sue OSU, racing the way for their lawyers to question Jordan and other OSU employees on Strauss.
Former Atlético Andy Geiger director was deposed on Wednesday, said NBC WCMH affiliate from Columbus. Some of the demands refer to Geiger as one of several people to whom athletes allege that they counted on abuse when it was happening.
“We planned to depose all OSU employees that they allegedly knew about the abuse of Strauss, including employees named in complaints,” said Adele Kimmel, director of the Civil Rights Project of Public Justice students, in June 2023.
