Dr. Richard Strauss began sexually abusing students within his first year as an assistant professor at Ohio State University.

Complaints about his conduct to university officials began almost immediately.

The abuse continued.

Over his 20-year career, Strauss would go on to abuse at least 177 male students at Ohio State.

For years, nobody stopped him.

Despite repeated complaints about Strauss to multiple university officials, the doctor continued to see student patients as a physician within Ohio State’s athletics department and Student Health Services.

When the university finally launched a limited investigation into Strauss' conduct in 1996, it ended with university administrators telling him that his contracts with Student Health Services and the athletics department would not be renewed.

Still, Strauss’ status as a tenured professor remained unchanged until his voluntary retirement in 1998. He killed himself in 2005.

These and other details were outlined in a 230-page investigative report from the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, more than 13 months after Ohio State announced the first allegations against Strauss.

>>For complete coverage of the Ohio State investigation into Dr. Richard Strauss, go to Dispatch.com/Strauss

The investigation, which included about 600 interviews of more than 500 people, so far has cost the university about $6.2 million.

Perkins Coie was hired by Ohio State to investigate two things: whether Strauss had committed sexual misconduct against OSU students while he was employed by the university, and whether the university was aware of the complaints.

In both cases, the answer was yes.

Investigators found that university personnel knew about Strauss' "sexually abusive treatment" of male student-patients as early as 1979, but "complaints and reports about Strauss' conduct were not elevated beyond the Athletics Department or Student Health until 1996."

In an interview with a small group of reporters Friday, OSU President Michael V. Drake called Strauss' pattern of abuse "shocking" and "horrifying."

"There was a consistent institutional failure over the many years by multiple people to carry out their minimum responsibilities, and that led to this tragedy," Drake said.

Provost Bruce McPheron said it was "heartbreaking to know that so many employees at the time were aware of the circumstances at some level, and yet none of them acted."

"A different reaction by one person could have changed the course of this in so many different ways," he said.

>>Read Ohio State president Michael V. Drake’s letter about the Strauss investigation

Strauss’ abuse ranged from subtle acts “masked with a pretextual medical purpose,” to the overt, such as "fondling to the point of erection and ejaculation," the report said.

Students' accounts to investigators detailed the sordid, graphic details of Strauss’ abuse. One student-athlete, for example, told investigators Strauss began to perform oral sex on him during an examination, and the doctor removed his own pants and wanted to receive oral sex. The student left the exam room without performing any sex acts. He then quit his team and did not report the abuse.

Investigators did not identify students. If a victim was a student-athlete, the report did not identify which sport he participated in.

Sixteen students said Strauss asked them to participate in photo shoots or that Strauss took pictures of them in the locker room. He told them he was working on a book about student-athletes.

One student, whom Strauss said he was evaluating for a sexually transmitted disease, was groped to the point of ejaculation. The student returned seven or eight times to be examined because Strauss said it was necessary to treat the infection. The student said Strauss never wore gloves and they were always alone.

Perkins Coie found no indication that Strauss' behavior was ever reported to law enforcement. Investigators asked Helen Ninos, the Ohio State human resources attorney who helped conduct the eventual 1996 Student Affairs investigation into Strauss, whether the university considered reporting the allegations about the doctor to police.

“Ninos' recollection was that the University was advised by the Ohio Attorney General's office on the issue of referring the students' complaints to the State Medical Board, and that her assumption was that the Medical Board would be the appropriate entity to make a criminal referral to law enforcement, depending on the outcome of the Medical Board's investigation of Strauss,” the report said.

>>Read more from Rob Oller: Physicals by Dr. Strauss unnerved Ohio State track athletes in early 1980s

The State Medical Board received a complaint about Strauss in 1996 but did not take disciplinary action, according to available records. Information from the board’s investigation into Strauss was provided to Ohio State, but it was redacted in the report released Friday because of the board’s confidentiality rules.

The report's release came a day after a federal judge denied Ohio State's request to include certain confidential information from the 1996 medical board investigation, writing that the matter was not for him to decide because the university's request did not pertain to using material from the probe as evidence in judicial proceedings.

Ohio State officials said Friday that the university will continue to advocate for permission to release the redacted portions of the report.

When he was placed on administrative leave in 1996, Strauss pushed back.



"Strauss persisted in protesting his removal from Athletics and Student Health" and threatened to take legal action against the university and a student, according to the report.

At that time, Strauss sought to open a private practice. He incorporated Men’s Clinics of America with the Ohio secretary of state’s office in August 1996. His business plan included hanging flyers for STD treatments in bar bathrooms around campus and offering discounts for students.

Several patients reported the same type of improper sexual behavior there as OSU students had.

When Strauss retired in 1998, Ohio State’s board of trustees awarded him emeritus status, which typically conveys benefits including use of university recreational facilities, athletics tickets, free campus parking and, in some cases, departmental facilities. However, investigators wrote they never found evidence that Strauss returned to Ohio State after his retirement.

Strauss dissolved his private clinic that same year and moved it to California. Investigators said they did not have any reports of abuse from that state.

Reports about Strauss garnered national attention when one of the victims said U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, who served as an assistant wrestling coach from 1986 to 1994, had been aware of complaints about Strauss. Jordan has consistently and categorically denied knowing anything about the abuse.

“We are glad that this investigation has concluded and that OSU is offering free counseling for those victims impacted by Strauss' actions," Jordan spokesman Ian Fury said in an emailed statement. "The investigators concluded what we have said from the beginning: Congressman Jordan never knew of any abuse, and if he had he would have dealt with it."

Actually, the report neither comes to any specific conclusions about Jordan, nor does it mention him by name. Investigators opted not to name him or any other OSU coaches except one: Charlotte Remenyik, then-head coach of OSU's fencing team, whose complaints to John Lombardo, then OSU's medical director and head team physician, were noted in a 1994 letter from Lombardo to then-senior associate athletic director Paul Krebs. Remenyik died in 2011.

Perkins Coie said 22 coaches confirmed to investigators that they were aware of rumors and complaints about Strauss.

Some former Ohio State administrators would not participate in the investigation.

Among them was Ted Grace, then-director of University Health Services, who knew of two fondling complaints against Strauss in January 1995 and then required that a chaperone accompany Strauss during exams. Still, Strauss was given nothing less than “excellent or “exceptional” ratings on his 1995 evaluation.

Grace eventually placed Strauss on administrative leave in 1996 and scheduled hearings to determine whether Strauss should be fired.

Grace is now director of student health services at Southern Illinois University. He did not return messages seeking comment Friday.

Lombardo, the medical director, also would not participate in the Perkins Coie investigation, though he investigated concerns about Strauss during his time at the university, the report said.

Male fencing team members’ complaints about Strauss were brought to the attention of Lombardo in 1994, the report said. A November 1994 letter by Lombardo in response to complaints alluded to "a decade of rumors'' about Strauss but did not go into detail.

Lombardo currently serves as the independent administrator of the NFL Policy on Performance-Enhancing Substances. He did not return messages seeking comment Friday.

Most victims reached by The Dispatch Friday said they were still reading through the report’s findings.

Brian Garrett worked for Strauss at his off-campus clinic, where he witnessed Strauss sexually abuse a patient and was abused himself. He said the report validates what he and other victims have been saying for more than a year and a half.

Former Ohio State wrestler Mike Schyck said the previous months have been emotional.

“The stuff we dealt with was real, and this was validation,” Schyck said. “They're taking responsibility.”

"Now is the time for them to step up to the plate and take care of the victims,” he said. “I've seen it and heard it firsthand. The emotional strain of this is real."

Three lawsuits filed by former Ohio State students who said they were sexually abused by Strauss remain pending in U.S. District Court in Columbus. Ohio State officials said they "will continue to work with these survivors and through any process outlined by the court."

Attorney Scott Smith, who represents one group of plaintiffs, said the report means the mediation process will "change drastically" because Ohio State cannot deny the abuse.

"As we suspected from the outset, OSU knew but intentionally failed to act upon the many cries for help by the hundreds of OSU male students who suffered sexual abuse by Dr. Strauss," Smith said. "The systematic sexual abuse, although preventable, was horrifically nurtured by OSU when they chose not to act, turning a blind eye when they had a duty to protect."

On Thursday, lawmakers introduced a bill in the Ohio House that would grant victims of sexual abuse by a university physician during the years of Strauss' tenure the ability to bring civil action against the university, effectively removing the statute of limitations for such abuse.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education has been investigating Ohio State’s handling of the Strauss allegations since August. The department said then that it would “examine whether the university is responding promptly and equitably to complaints and reports by former students, including allegations that employees knew or should have known about the sexual misconduct and allowed the abuse to continue.”

Dispatch Reporters Jessica Wehrman and Jack Torry contributed to this story.

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