In testimony before Ohio’s House Civil Justice Committee on Tuesday, a former captain of Ohio State University’s wrestling team slammed Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for ignoring reports of sexual abuse.
Adam DiSabato held his position with the team in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
From 1979 to 1996, Ohio State team doctor Richard Strauss sexually abused at least 177 male students at the school. Jordan was the assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1987 to 1995, and at least 53 members of the team were abused by Strauss during that time period.
“I coach kids and what they did to kids is awful,” DiSabato said on Tuesday. “I went to Jim Jordan, I went to them as a captain begging them to do something. They did nothing.”
DiSabato also testified that Jordan called him in 2018 to pressure him to rebuke his brother Michael DiSabato, who was then speaking out and telling reporters that the abuse was common knowledge to wrestling coaches like Jordan.
“Jim Jordan called me crying, crying, groveling, on the Fourth of July, begging me to go against my brother. Begging me, crying for a half hour. That’s the kind of cover-up that’s going on there,” DiSabato said.
Jordan’s spokesman, Ian Fury, called DiSabato’s testimony “another lie” and said, “Congressman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had he would have dealt with it.”
Multiple abuse victims have accused Jordan of turning a blind eye to their trauma, charges of which he has repeatedly denied.
Jordan has been one of Donald Trump’s most visible defenders in the House of Representatives. Trump has admitted to sexually abusing women and has been accused by multiple women with credible accounts of sexually predatory behavior.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
