Latest news with #Strauss
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Sport
- Winnipeg Free Press
Republican Jim Jordan deposed in federal suit tied to sex abuse by late Ohio State team doctor
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan was among those questioned under oath this month after release of a new documentary about the sexual abuse of Ohio State University athletes decades ago by a team doctor, according to a court filing. Jordan's deposition Friday came in a federal lawsuit brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss, who died in 2005. Hundreds say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998. Many ex-wrestlers over the years have accused Jordan, who served as assistant coach of the Ohio State wrestling team from 1986 to 1994, of knowing about the abuse and failing to act. The 10-term congressman's office had declined to confirm Friday's deposition, but it reiterated Jordan's denial of any awareness of Strauss' crimes or the cover-up. 'As everyone knows, (House Judiciary) Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,' a statement said. Jordan formerly sat for questioning during the university's independent investigation of the matter, but this was his first time under oath. A Monday court filing shows attorneys for the former athletes also questioned Michael Murphy and John Doe 72, both plaintiffs in the case, on July 9 and July 11 respectively, and former long-time Ohio State Athletic Director Andy Geiger on Wednesday. The depositions follow the airing of 'Surviving Ohio State,' a documentary on the Strauss scandal produced by George Clooney and directed by Academy and Emmy award-winning director Eva Orner. The film was released June 17 on HBO and Max.
The Citizen
2 days ago
- Health
- The Citizen
ADHD support needs teamwork, not blame
POLOKWANE – Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) remain a hot-button issue in schools, homes and online forums. While some people still offer outdated advice like 'just give the child a good hiding,' professionals and parents who live with these conditions know the reality is far more complex. Many frustrated parents blame teachers for not doing enough to 'control' their children, while teachers sometimes face criticism for recommending medical intervention. But the truth is, no child is casually put on medication – there's a thorough assessment process involving healthcare professionals. Occupational therapist Liné Strauss explains that ADHD is one of the most common psychiatric disorders among children, affecting between 2% and 16% of school-aged kids. 'It's not something occupational therapists diagnose; that's the job of medical professionals. But we are very much part of the support system,' she said. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that continues into adulthood and is defined by patterns of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsiveness that interfere with everyday functioning. Inattention can look like constantly losing items, poor time management and disorganisation, and difficulty focusing for long periods – even if they're not fidgety or disruptive. Hyperactivity may show up as excessive fidgeting and constant movement, talking too much or making inappropriate comments or impulsive behaviour like shouting out answers or making risky decisions without thinking. To conclude, Strauss stressed the importance of collaboration: 'It's crucial to get everyone involved – parents, teachers, occupational therapists, dieticians and doctors. Each plays a role in helping a child with ADHD reach their full potential. Understanding, patience and informed support can help children with ADHD or ADD thrive, not just cope. The focus should always be on empowerment, not punishment.' Strauss offers practical tips that can make a big difference: Inspired by fellow occupational therapist Helise Duvenhage, Strauss recommends: • Hiding objects in playdough. • Pushing heavy objects like toy crates or laundry baskets. • Doing animal walks like frog jumps or wheelbarrow walks. • Eating crunchy snacks like raw carrots or cucumber sticks. • Wrapping the child tightly in a blanket for a few seconds, then unwrapping them. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
A new film about the Ohio State wrestling team sex abuse scandal indicts those who looked away
For more than 30 years, Fred Feeney refereed matches for the Ohio State University's powerhouse wrestling team. Unlike the dozens of young men whose athletic scholarships depended on staying in the good graces of the team doctor, Richard Strauss, who could withhold permission for them to compete, Feeney didn't have to persuade himself that what Strauss did was OK. He didn't have to pretend it was OK that Strauss was constantly taking showers with athletes. Or that it was OK when, after a match, Strauss masturbated next to Feeney in the shower, then grabbed the ref's ass. A visibly shaken Feeney recounts in the new documentary, 'Surviving Ohio State,' that he left the locker room that day in distress and immediately told wrestling coach Russ Hellickson and assistant wrestling coach Jim Jordan what had happened. Both coaches shrugged, said Feeney, who added that Jordan told him, 'It's Strauss. You know what he does.' Dan Ritchie, who quit the wrestling team in his third year because he could no longer tolerate Strauss' sexual abuse — which included forcing athletes to drop their pants and endure genital and rectal exams when they saw him, for even the most minor complaint — said that Jordan once told him, 'If he ever did that to me, I'd snap his neck like a stick of dry balsa wood.' But Jordan, now the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and an unwavering ally of President Trump, has assiduously denied ever seeing or knowing about assaults committed by Strauss during Jordan's eight years with the team. He emerges as one of the bad guys in the new film, which is based on the Sports Illustrated 2020 investigation, 'Why Aren't More People Talking About the Ohio State Sex Abuse Scandal?' Produced by the Oscar-winning documentarian Eva Orner and George Clooney's production company, it debuted on HBO Max in June. 'To say that [Jordan] knew nothing, that nothing ever happened, it's a flat out lie,' Ritchie says in the documentary. A callous response to reports of sexual assault was the norm at Ohio State. While administrators deflected reports about Strauss for years, claiming they were just rumors, the university's 2019 investigation, performed by an outside law firm, found that during his 1978-1996 tenure in the athletics department and at the student health center, Strauss assaulted at least 177 students thousands of times. The school's fencing coach, Charlotte Remenyik, complained about Strauss for 10 years until he was finally removed as her teams' doctor. (In response to her efforts to protect her athletes, Strauss accused her of waging a vendetta against him.) A complaint finally caused the university to remove him as a treating physician at OSU in 1996, but he was still a tenured faculty member when he retired, with 'emeritus' status, in 1998. He died by suicide in 2005. It was not until the Larry Nassar gymnastics abuse scandal exploded between 2016 and 2018 that the former Ohio State wrestlers understood that they, too, had been victimized by their team doctor, and that there were probably a lot more of them than anyone realized. 'I said, 'Wow, that's us,'' said former OSU wrestler Michael DiSabato, one of the first to go public. 'It unlocked something in me.' A group of former teammates met in 2018, then later sat down with their old coach, Hellickson, in an emotional encounter. Hellickson promised to write letters supporting them, the wrestlers said, then ghosted them. He did not respond to filmmakers' requests to be interviewed. Likewise, Jordan shunned requests for interviews, and he has appeared exasperated in news clips when questioned about what he knew. He's not a defendant in any of the abuse lawsuits filed against OSU. In 2020, Michael DiSabato's brother, Adam, a former wrestler and team captain, testified under oath during a hearing on an Ohio bill that would have allowed Strauss' victims to sue OSU for damages, that Jordan called him 'crying, groveling … begging me to go against my brother.' Jordan has denied that conversation took place. It seems to me that a normal human being, operating from a place of empathy, might express feelings of sorrow that the young male athletes in his charge were abused to the point that some considered suicide and others quit sports altogether, instead of accusing them of lying. Ritchie, for example, said his father was so disappointed about his decision to quit wrestling — he could not bring himself to tell his father why — that it permanently overshadowed their relationship. I find no evidence that Jordan ever expressed feelings of regret for his wrestlers, though he did insist to Politico in 2018, 'I never knew about any type of abuse. If I did, I would have done something about it. And look, if there are people who are abused, then that's terrible and we want justice to happen.' If? Although the explosive new documentary has been overshadowed by the implosion taking place in MAGA world over the 'Jeffrey Epstein files' and questions about Trump's relationship with the serial sexual predator, the OSU scandal is far from being yesterday's news. So far, OSU has settled with nearly 300 abuse survivors, each receiving an average of $252,000. But many are not willing to settle for what they consider peanuts and note that the average payout to Nassar's victim is more than $1 million. On Friday, as part of a federal civil lawsuit filed by some of them, Jordan was reportedly due to be deposed under oath for the first time about the allegations that he knew about the abuse and failed to protect his wrestlers. Steve Snyder-Hill, one of the first OSU non-athletes to report that he'd been assaulted by Strauss in 1995, told NBC that he planned to be present for Jordan's deposition. 'I expect him to lie under oath,' said Snyder-Hill. 'I don't know a nicer way to put it.' Bluesky: @rabcarian Threads: @rabcarian
The Hill
5 days ago
- Sport
- The Hill
Rep Jim Jordan to be questioned under oath on Strauss sex abuse scandal
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) will answer questions under oath in relation to the Richard Strauss sex abuse scandal at Ohio State University, sources have told Nexstar's WCMH. After years of appeals, depositions are underway in the sexual abuse scandal involving Strauss, a former Ohio State University doctor. It has been seven years since the first lawsuits were filed against the university. Jordan is set to be deposed on Friday in Washington. Former Ohio State Athletic Director Andy Geiger was deposed on Wednesday in Los Angeles. Columbus says village's speed cameras are straining city's resources Jordan and Geiger are being questioned as part of civil lawsuits against the university. Neither have been charged with any crimes, but many have questioned what they knew about Strauss' behavior. In a statement, a spokesperson for Jordan repeated earlier denials. 'As everyone knows, Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,' the spokesperson said. Attorneys for Ohio State University have also questioned some of the survivors, whose Title IX claims accuse the university of knowing what Strauss was doing, facilitating it, and concealing it. Survivors have shared their anguished stories as they described being sexually abused, even being drugged and raped by Strauss. But they also shared their anger as they learned the Strauss assaults lasted for nearly 20 years, and they said university leaders, even their own coaches, knew. At least four former wrestlers and one referee are on record saying they complained about Strauss to Jordan, a then-assistant wrestling coach. HBO recently released a documentary about the scandal. Marshall was interviewed for the documentary after reporting on the scandal for many years. Ohio State was not involved in making the documentary. The survivors of Strauss kept quiet for decades, internalizing their trauma, but back in 2018, they started talking. Hundreds of the survivors of the 20-year-long string of sexual assaults by the Ohio State team doctor still have cases against the university pending in federal court. In a previous statement to WCMH, an Ohio State University spokesperson said: Ohio State led the effort to investigate and expose Richard Strauss, and we express our deep regret and apologies to all who experienced Strauss' abuse. The university is forever grateful to the survivors who participated in the independent investigation, which could not have been completed without their strength and courage. Since 2018, we have reached settlement agreements with more than half of the plaintiffs, 296 survivors, for more than $60 million. All male students who filed lawsuits have been offered the opportunity to settle. In addition, the university continues to cover the cost of professionally certified counseling services and other medical treatment, including reimbursement for counseling and treatment received in the past.
NBC News
6 days ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Rep. Jim Jordan faces deposition about OSU sex abuse scandal
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the Republican Party's top inquisitors in Congress, is expected to be deposed Friday about allegations that he failed to protect the wrestlers he once coached at Ohio State University from a sexual predator, four plaintiffs in lawsuits against the university told NBC News. Jordan, who was the assistant wrestling coach at the university from 1986 to 1994 before he got into politics, has repeatedly and publicly denied any knowledge that the team's doctor, Richard Strauss, was preying on the athletes. It will be the first time Jordan has be questioned under oath by lawyers representing hundreds of former OSU students, both athletes and nonathletes, who are suing the school for damages in federal court in the Southern District of Ohio. Jordan is not a defendant, but he is referred to in some of the lawsuits alleging he was aware of the abuse. Jordan, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, is known for his combative questioning of witnesses and for avoiding suit jackets during it. Reached for comment, Jordan spokesperson Russell Dye released a variation of the statement Jordan's team has been using since July 2018, when three former OSU wrestlers told NBC News that Jordan was lying when he claimed he did not know that Strauss molested them under the guise of giving physical examinations. 'As everyone knows, Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,' the statement said. Mike DiSabato, who wrestled for Jordan and was the first former OSU student who publicly accused him of having turned a blind eye to the abuse Strauss inflicted on him and his teammates, said he does not expect Jordan to say any more than he already has. 'I assume he's going to triple down and follow the same script he followed back in 2018 when he went on Fox and denied knowing about any abuse, denied being told of any abuse, never heard the word 'abuse,'' DiSabato said. DiSabato was referring to an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier in which Jordan also insisted that he did not hear any locker room banter about Strauss. Still, said DiSabato, who previously reached a settlement with OSU, he hopes Jordan 'will finally come out and admit that he knew Strauss was doing unnecessary prostate exams, doing unnecessary genital exams, taking multiple showers with athletes, all while being employed by a university funded by the state of Ohio.' Jordan will sit down for a deposition about a month after the release of an HBO Max documentary about the Strauss scandal called ' Surviving Ohio State,' in which one of the wrestlers he once coached flat-out called him a liar. Another Strauss survivor, Steve Snyder-Hill, said he will watch the deposition Friday at his lawyer's office in Columbus. While he is not a former athlete, Snyder-Hill is one of the former OSU students suing the university. 'I expect him to lie under oath,' Snyder-Hill said. 'I don't know a nicer way to put it.' Snyder-Hill said Strauss abused him at a campus clinic in 1995. He said that what the doctor was alleged to have been doing to young men under the guise of giving physical examinations eventually became an open secret throughout campus, extending beyond the athletes' locker rooms. 'Jordan had a locker two down from Strauss, and Jordan claims he didn't know?' Snyder-Hill said. 'That's hard to believe.' Strauss, who died in 2005, worked at OSU from 1978 through 1998. Prompted by allegations from DiSabato and other former OSU wrestlers, the university agreed to an independent investigation by the Perkins Coie law firm, which concluded in 2019 that coaches and athletic administrators knew for two decades that Strauss was molesting male athletes and other students but failed to sound the alarm or stop him. Jordan's former communications director, Ian Fury, insisted in 2019 that the report absolved Jordan. All of the coaches and administrators' names were redacted in the version of the report released to the public. Fury cited as proof a line in the report that said investigators 'did not identify any other contemporaneous documentary evidence indicating that members of the OSU coaching staff, including head coaches or assistant coaches, received or were aware of complaints regarding Strauss' sexual misconduct.' Since the release of the report, OSU has said it has paid out $60 million in settlement money and its former president has publicly apologized 'to each person who endured' abuse at the hands of Strauss. Several of the lawsuits mention Jordan by name. Still facing at least five active lawsuits from 236 men alleging Strauss molested them, too, OSU, which had apologized to Strauss' victims and had reported in 2019 that Strauss committed 1,429 sexual assaults and 47 rapes, walked back its previous position in October 2023 and denied having admitted any wrongdoing. The settlements it paid out were without admission of liability and were reached through mediation. OSU also argued that the statute of limitations in the case against it had run out. But in June 2023, the Supreme Court refused to reconsider a lower court ruling that said former students should be allowed to sue OSU, paving the way for their lawyers to question Jordan and other OSU employees about Strauss. Former Athletic Director Andy Geiger was deposed Wednesday, NBC affiliate WCMH of Columbus reported. Some of the lawsuits refer to Geiger as one of several people whom student-athletes allege they told about the abuse when it was happening. 'We plan to depose every OSU employee alleged to have known about Strauss' abuse, including the employees named in the complaints,' Adele Kimmel, director of the Public Justice Students' Civil Rights Project, said in June 2023.
