Ex-wrestlers Claim Jim Jordan Is Unfit for Speakership, Say He Helped Cover Up Ohio State Sexual Abuse Scandal

On Wednesday Jim Jordan lost a secret ballot amongst GOP House members to become Speaker of the House. But whether or not victor Rep. Steve Scalise will be named is uncertain as the vote heads to a full House vote, which may or may not take place on Thursday. This indicates, as the Washington Post notes, that Scalise is still working to win support of Jordan backers. Becoming speaker requires a majority vote in the narrowly divided House.

Wednesday's private vote was said to be close, and one factor that may have contributed to Jordan's loss was the re-surfacing of accusations that he helped cover up a sexual abuse scandal at Ohio State four decades ago. Somewhat forgotten, the scandal will again be in the public eye when HBO shows an upcoming documentary, produced by George Clooney, that brings the scandal to the forefront once again. If elected, the doc would air during Jordan's speakership.

The accusations have gone on for years and for his part Jordan has denied them. But his ambitious move to become Speaker in the past few days led many former Ohio State wrestlers to speak out against his becoming Speaker.

"Former Ohio State wrestlers who accuse Jim Jordan of ignoring sexual abuse when he was a coach said the hard-right Republican should not be elected speaker of the US House," reports The Guardian.

"Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?" Mike Schyck, one of hundreds of wrestlers who say they were assaulted by a team doctor, told NBC News. "Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?"

Schyck, one of the hundreds of former athletes and students who say they were sexually abused by school doctor Richard Strauss and have sued the university. Jordan was the team's assistant coach from 1986 until 1994.

"The wrestlers' decisions to weigh in adds a new dimension to the speaker race, bringing in a controversial part of Jordan's past that continues to hang over the Ohio Republican and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump," writes NBC News.

The Los Angeles Times writes that "Jordan has consistently denied that university athletic doctor Richard Strauss, who sexually abused at least 177 male students between 1979 and 1996, according to a 2019 report commissioned by the university. Strauss died by suicide in 2005."

Dunyasha Yetts, another former OSU wrestler, said Jordan's "hypocrisy is unbelievable." Concluding, "He doesn't deserve to be House speaker. "He still has to answer for what happened to us."

Yetts was one of 15 former Ohio State students who filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the team. Yetts has repeatedly claimed that Jordan "knew the team doctor molested him but failed to act has sued the school for unspecified damages."

"Yetts told NBC News he expects the powerful Republican congressman, as well as former head coach Russ Hellickson, will be identified in filings to come but will not be named as a defendants. He said the decision not to do so right now was strategic and that the athletes wanted to keep the focus on Ohio State's failure to stop Strauss," writes NBC News.

"The lawsuit, which is one of at least five that have been filed against Ohio State, comes on the heels of a report released in May which concluded that Strauss sexually abused 177 male students."

NBC News writes in a related report that "Rocky Ratliff, a former OSU wrestler and 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.'"

Jordan "has repeatedly denied any knowledge of sexual abuse by Strauss when Jordan coached at OSU from 1986 to 1994, including overhearing any locker room banter about abuse," continues NBC News.

"Jordan was mentioned by name in the complaints filed with the federal court for the Southern District of Ohio in 2019, and he was also mentioned in some of the earlier lawsuits," NBC News reports.

Ratliff, Schyck and an unnamed former wrestler called John Doe are part of the remaining lawsuit against OSU. Ratliff plans to depose Jordan and have him testify under oath that he was unaware that Strauss was abusing students. "His locker was just a few spots away from mine and mine was near Dr. Strauss,'" Schyck said. "And we were always talking about Dr. Strauss. There's no way he didn't know what was going on."

The abuse claims came to light after a whistleblower. former OSU wrestler Mike DiSabato, stepped forward early in 2018 claiming that Strauss molested him and some of his teammates during physicals.

But the story didn't go viral until July of that year when DiSabato and several other former Ohio State wrestlers told NBC News that Jordan had refused to help them take on OSU – and that Jordan was lying when he insisted he had been unaware of the alleged abuse by the team doctor.

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.

"It was an open secret," Ratliff said in an earlier interview. "Everybody talked about Strauss. Everybody knew if you went to him, the first thing he would do is take down your pants. Everybody knew he was taking unnecessary showers with the team. His locker was near Jimmy's locker."