As reported by MSN, "Four former wrestlers from Ohio State University are speaking out against Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as a choice for the next Speaker of the House, saying that the House Judiciary Chairman failed to protect them from a sexual predator who served as the assistant coach on their team in the 1980s and 90s, according to NBC News.
“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck told NBC. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House Speaker?”
Schyck is one of hundreds of former athletes and students who sued the university and said they were sexually abused by doctor Richard Strauss. Jordan was working as an assistant wrestling coach at the time.
Jordan announced his candidacy for the speakership last week after eight Republicans and Democrats voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from leadership. Jordan appears to be taking the lead in the two-way race between him and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.
The OSU wrestling affair hasn't garnered much attention and one congresswoman said she wasn't even aware of the allegations.
Another former OSU wrestler, Dunyasha Yetts, has publicly accused Jordan of lying about not knowing what the doctor was doing to the athletes. He told NBC Jordan's "hypocrisy is unbelievable."
“He doesn’t deserve to be House Speaker,” Yetts said. “He still has to answer for what happened to us.”
The doctor, who died in 2005, was accused of preying on hundreds of men at OSU from the 1970s to 1990s. The university admitted their failure in protecting the students and Strauss paid $60 million in settlement money to 296 victims, according to NBC.
In the summer, the Supreme Court blocked OSU's attempt at dismissing any lawsuits against the school.
Several of the wrestlers said Jordan has to know what was going on. Yetts said in one instance he went to Strauss for a thumb injury and the doctor attempted to pull his pants down, which he immediately informed Jordan and their then-head coach about.
Following an investigation in 2019, it was revealed that coaches and athletic administrators knew of the abuse for two decades, but failed to act. Jordan’s then-communications director reportedly insisted that this absolved the congressmen, NBC reported.
Schyck, who said he is a Republican, said before the scandal, Jordan “was somebody I revered, somebody I looked up to.”
“He put himself in this position,” Schyck told NBC. “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.”
Schyck continued: “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."
Because it is so hard for victims to get justice in Jeffrey Epstein's crime syndicate's America - without becoming the target of additional abuse, harassment, threats, and defamation - these four brave victims speaking truth to power and to Jim Jordan for his role in allowing as many as 2000 students to be sexually assaulted, raped, sodomized, and/or other harm, makes them some of our heroes for this week.
In contrast, Jeffrey Epstein's Trump, who has also been accused of major sex crimes, including the rape of at least one child (for which Trump was sued), has endorsed Ohio State's Jim Jordan to lead a branch of Congress, because of course he would.
[1] Photo: https://unsplash.com/@chris_chow