Thirty former Ohio State University football players, including more than a dozen who went on to play in the NFL, have signed on to the class-action lawsuit filed by other former OSU students who say they were sexually assaulted decades ago by campus doctor Richard Strauss.
While the eight-year legal battle to get OSU to pay damages over allegations that it failed to protect them from Strauss has so far been fought largely by former college wrestlers, this new group includes prominent former members of the Buckeye football team like Al Washington, Ray Ellis and Keith Ferguson, all three of whom played professional football, former OSU wrestler Mike DiSabato said in a statement press release Thursday.
Attorney Rocky Ratliff, a former OSU wrestler and one of the Strauss survivors currently suing the school, confirmed Thursday that he represents the 30 football players who signed engagement letters to join the class-action lawsuit he is affiliated with.
“They signed up under my direction, but they will end up being part of the class action,” he said.
The group of men formerly played for NFL teams that include the Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns and former San Diego Chargers.
“When you play football, you encounter obstacles, and when I was a Buckeye, I decided not to let what happened to me defeat me, so I stayed quiet,” Washington, 67, told NBC News before the announcement Thursday. “But I’ve lived with this for a long time, and it’s time to settle this once and for all.”
Dr. Richard Strauss from a 1978 job application at Ohio State University.Ohio State University“I love Ohio State, but I want Ohio State to take some responsibility for what happened to us,” said Washington, who later played for the New York Jets.
Like the other men suing the school, Washington and the other former OSU football players allege that Strauss sexually abused them under the guise of making them complete medical exams they were required to undergo before being allowed to play for OSU.
Washington, who runs a private insurance company in Columbus, Ohio, said he became aware of the situation. scope of Strauss’ abuse allegations and lawsuits against OSU several years after DiSabato went public in 2018 with allegations that Strauss had sexually assaulted him and hundreds of other athletes and that the school knew about it but did nothing to stop it.
But Washington was hesitant to come forward because he didn’t want to jeopardize the career of his son, also named Al Washington, who was then the linebackers coach at OSU and is now the linebackers coach for the Miami Dolphins.
“I didn’t want him to be penalized for something that affected me,” Washington said.
NBC News reached out to OSU for comment on the 30 men who joined the lawsuit, but did not immediately receive a response. The university and its former president have already publicly apologized “to every person who suffered” abuse at the hands of Strauss.
The State of Ohio has been grappling with Strauss-related lawsuits in the Southern District of Ohio since 2018.
As of April 15, the school had settled more than $61 million with 317 survivors, according to an OSU spokesperson. But the university still faces five active lawsuits in the Southern District of Ohio from 236 men alleging Strauss abused them.
Strauss, who killed himself in 2005, preyed on hundreds of men between the mid-1970s and late 1990s, according to an independent investigation sponsored by the university.
The investigation, led by law firm Perkins Coie, concluded in May 2019 that Strauss sexually abused at least 177 male athletes and students and that coaches and administrators knew about it for two decades but failed to stop it.
One of those former coaches accused by DiSabato and many other former OSU wrestlers of doing nothing to stop Strauss from abusing them was Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio’s powerful Republican congressman who was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1986 to 1994.
Jordan has repeatedly denied knowledge of what Strauss allegedly did to the athletes and his name is not mentioned in Perkins Coie’s report.