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A federal judge ordered Ohio State University to resolve other prosecution deposited by former students by mediation who claimed that he did not protect them from a sexual predator on school pay.
US district judge Michael H. Watson made the order on Monday while the university still faces five active proceedings of 236 men alleging that Dr. Richard Strauss had attacked them, mainly under the cover of doctors.
“Ohio State University describes itself as a different university today that when Dr. Richard Strauss has abused hundreds of young men – for decades – like his employee,” Watson, of the South Ohio district. “Yet it is today The state of Ohio which must count with the consequences of this ugly past in these cases. »»
If the case was tried and the accusers won, it would be a “pyrrhic victory,” wrote Watson.
“The best way for the complainants to close this horrible chapter in their lives and for Ohio State to progress as a respectable institution in higher education, by a mutual resolution unless a trial,” wrote the judge.
Watson, in his order, returned the cases to Layn PhillipsA former Oklahoma federal judge who was mediaking the proceedings brought against the state of Michigan by some 200 female athletes who were sexually abused by Doctor Sportif Larry Nasser.
The state of Michigan paid $ 500 million on Nassar’s sexual abuse, which is supposed to be The greatest regulation ever made in a case of sexual misconduct involving a university.
“He asked the state of Michigan to pay the victims of millions of money.
Phillips will work alongside other mediators Catherine Geyer and Michelle Yoshida, as well as the Clerk of the Caroline Kedeshian law, according to Watson.
Watson also gave the two parties a period of February 27, 2026 to provide the court with a stage report “how the court will examine whether additional mediation would be productive”.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the OSU and complainants will be allowed to continue taking deposits from witnesses.
Among those who have already been deposited Are representative Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who was an assistant coach at the University from 1986 to 1994 before launching in politics, four complainants said last month in legal actions against the university.
Jordan has on several occasions and publicly denied all knowledge that Strauss attacked athletes. It was deposited about a month after the release of an HBO Max documentary on the Strauss scandal called “Ohio State survivor», In which one of the wrestlers he once led called him a liar. Jordan is not a defendant, but he is mentioned in some of the proceedings alleging that he was aware of the abuse.
The complainants’ lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Watson’s decision. A spokesperson for Ohio State, Benjamin Johnson, also refused to comment, saying by e-mail: “We generally do not start in progress.”
The Ohio State found itself under fire in 2018 after a former denunciation wrestler named Mike Disabato was made public with allegations that Strauss had sexually abused him as well as hundreds of other athletes and that school knew but did nothing to stop him.
Strauss assured hundreds of men from the mid -1970s to the late 1990s. He died by suicide in 2005.
An independent investigation sponsored by Ohio State and conducted by the Perkins Coie The law firm concluded in May 2019 that Strauss had sexually abused at least 177 athletes and male students and that coaches and administrators knew it for two decades but failed to stop it.
Since the publication of the report, the OSU has declared that it had paid $ 60 million in payment money And his former president has publicly apologized “from each person who has endured” abuses from Strauss. But he fell to settle the remaining proceedings.
