Tito Vazquez says he still remembers the day three decades ago when, as a wrestler at Ohio State University, the doctor he'd gone to see about a bloody nose insisted on examining his genitals. He also recalls how one of his coaches dismissed his immediate complaint.
"'I have nothing to do with this,'" Vazquez quoted the assistant coach saying, as he effectively ended the conversation and went on with wrestling practice.
That coach, Vazquez says, was Jim Jordan, now an Ohio congressman and an influential voice in Republican politics, perhaps best known for his pugnacious defense of President Donald Trump during the recent impeachment proceedings.
Vazquez is one of six former OSU wrestlers who told CNN in recent interviews that they were present when Jordan heard or responded to sexual misconduct complaints about team doctor Richard Strauss. Eight others say Strauss' inappropriate behavior was an open secret in the athletic department and that Jordan, among others, must have known about it.
What Jordan and other coaches knew, and when they knew it, has been under scrutiny since 2018, when OSU announced an investigation into the allegations against Strauss. An independent report commissioned by the university concluded last year that Strauss "sexually abused at least 177 male student-patients" between 1979 and 1998. The doctor died by suicide in 2005.
A number of lawsuits have been filed against OSU over allegations related to Strauss. On Friday, OSU announced that it reached a monetary settlement with Strauss' victims in 11 out of 18 pending cases.
Since the scandal emerged, Jordan has emphatically denied that he knew anything about Strauss' abuse during his own years working at OSU, between 1987 and 1995. "Congressman Jordan never saw any abuse, never heard about any abuse, and never had any abuse reported to him during his time as a coach at Ohio State," his congressional office said in 2018.
His campaign went so far as to hire a public relations firm to push back on the allegations. But Vazquez, for one, doesn't believe Jordan's claims. "When these complaints come and he pretends now that he had no knowledge of it, that's betrayal in the highest level," said Vazquez, now a public school teacher, who added that the continued denials played a role in prompting him to speak out about his experience. The OSU-commissioned report did not reach conclusions regarding each coach's knowledge of Strauss' abuse, but it did note that "numerous" student-athletes said they "talked about Strauss' inappropriate genital exams and complained about Strauss' locker room and shower room voyeurism, directly to—or in front of—OSU coaching staff." The report stated that 22 coaches -- unnamed in the report -- said they were aware of rumors or complaints about Strauss.
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Former OSU wrestler Adam DiSabato told Ohio state legislators in February that Jordan called him in 2018 and asked him to contradict statements by his brother, who had publicly alleged Jordan knew about Strauss' abuse when he worked for the university.
"Jim Jordan called me crying, crying. Groveling. On the 4th of July, begging me to go against my brother. Begging me. Crying for a half hour. That's the kind of cover-ups that's going on there," DiSabato told legislators.
