A federal judge Wednesday dismissed all the outstanding lawsuits against Ohio State University that were filed by hundreds of former students and athletes who claim school officials failed to protect them from a sexual predator.
Judge Michael H. Watson said there was no question the victims “suffered unspeakable sexual abuse” at the hands of Dr. Richard Strauss and that OSU coaches and other school officials knew about it and did not stop him.
But Watson said the cases could not move forward because the statute of limitations for criminal rape cases in Ohio is 20 years, and Strauss preyed on hundreds of men from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. He died by suicide in 2005.
“If there is a viable path forward for Plaintiffs on their claim against Ohio State, it starts with the legislature rather than the judiciary,” Watson wrote.
Strauss victim Steve Snyder-Hill could barely contain his fury.
“The judge just threw 300 survivors in a trash can,” Snyder-Hill said. “A trash can with an OSU logo on it.”
Lawyers for 126 of the victims, represented by attorney Scott Elliot Smith, the Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel law firm and non-profit litigation and advocacy group Public Justice, vowed to appeal Watson’s ruling.
“OSU spent decades denying, hiding, and evading the truth about its role in concealing the abuse that happened on its watch,” they said a statement. “Today’s ruling punishes survivors already traumatized by the university’s callous campaign of deception. The court’s decision cannot, and must not, be the final word in the survivors’ journey towards justice.”
In a separate ruling, Watson also refused to recuse himself from the Strauss cases despite news that he failed to disclose his wife has a business relationship with the university. He also acknowledged he went on a cruise sponsored by a group that raises money for a university-affiliated hospital while he was presiding over the cases against OSU.
He said in his decision that “someone” was trying to distract attention from the cases brought against OSU “by redirecting focus on the Court itself.”
“But in doing so, that someone has made a mountain out of several molehills,” Watson said, without mentioning any names.
Forty-eight of the victims were represented by Rocky Ratliff, a lawyer and former OSU wrestler.
“Not only did he deny our request for recusal, he tossed my case after we asked for him to remove himself,” Ratliff said.
Watson did not explain in his decision why he waited until now to decide the cases could not continue because of the statute of limitations. Eric Weitz, a spokesman for the Southern District of Ohio, did not provide a response to that question.
OSU found itself under fire in 2018 after a whistleblowing former Ohio State wrestler named Mike DiSabato went public with allegations that Strauss had sexually abused him and hundreds of other athletes under the guise of providing routine examinations and that the school knew about this but did nothing to stop him.
An independent investigation by the Perkins Coie law firm 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 him.
“Beginning in 2018, Ohio State sought to uncover and acknowledge the truth about Richard Strauss’ abuse and the university’s failure at the time to prevent it,’ the school said in a statement Wednesday.
“We are forever grateful to the survivors who participated in the independent Perkins Coie investigation, which could not have been completed without their strength and courage,” the statement continued, “and we offer our deepest regrets and apologies to all who experienced Strauss’ abuse.”
The results of the investigation opened the door to a flood of lawsuits by Strauss victims. Watkins, who was nominated to the federal bench in 2004 by President George W. Bush, was appointed to the cases in July 2018.
Watson’s impartiality came into question earlier this month after NBC News asked about the business ties his wife, Lori Leavitt Watson, has to OSU. She owns The Flag Lady’s Flag Store in Columbus, Ohio, which sells, among other items, the red-and-silver OSU flags that can be spotted across much of the state.
Watson said during a hastily convened court hearing that his wife has a licensing agreement that permits her to market OSU-authorized trademark merchandise and neither of them have a “financial interest in the Ohio State University as defined by the Code of Conduct for United States Judges.”
But Watson conceded “the appearance of impropriety may be implicated.”
Watson, who previously acknowledged he teaches a law class at OSU, gave the victims’ lawyers 10 days to weigh in on whether he should recuse himself from the contentious cases.
Before they could respond, photos surfaced of Watson and his wife taking part in a “Buckeye Cruise for Cancer” aboard the “Mariner of the Seas,” which cruised the Caribbean from Feb. 23-29, 2019. Watson had been assigned the Strauss cases seven months earlier.
While several of the victims’ lawyers asked that Watson remove himself from the case, OSU urged the judge to stay on and called him a “model of judicial temperament, compassion toward plaintiffs, patience, commitment to equal justice, and freedom from bias.”
Watson, in the court papers, said going on the cruise was not improper because it raises funds for OSU’s James Comprehensive Cancer Center, not the undergraduate university and that he took part “in his individual capacity, not in his capacity as a federal judge.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
