Ohio billionaire Les Wexner, who is being compelled by the House Oversight Committee to give evidence about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, also faces a subpoena in his home state to testify about another man accused of being a sex offender — former Ohio State University physician Richard Strauss.
The federal judge presiding over a lawsuit against OSU brought by former students who say their alma mater failed to protect them from Strauss has granted their motion to allow Wexner to be served with a subpoena by email, through his lawyer or via his bodyguards, according to the decision filed Monday.
“Plaintiffs’ Motion for Alternative Service on Non-Party Leslie Wexner is GRANTED,” U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson wrote in a ruling filed in the Southern District of Ohio.
The Strauss survivors filed the motion in November, alleging that Wexner’s security and lawyer had repeatedly thwarted their process servicers’ attempts to deliver a subpoena directly to Wexner that would have him testify and turn over “relevant documents.”
A spokesperson for Wexner declined Tuesday to comment on the latest development.
Watson’s ruling came a week after the House committee voted to subpoena Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, over his ties to Epstein, whom he had a lengthy relationship with dating to the 1980s and who hired him to manage his personal finances.
A House Oversight spokesperson said Monday that a subpoena has not yet been sent to Wexner.
Wexner, one of Ohio State’s top benefactors, served on the OSU board of trustees “during the time period at the heart of this case” when Strauss preyed on hundreds of students, the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in their motion.
Wexner has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the Strauss case.
Ohio State has been battling lawsuits since 2018, when a former wrestler named Mike DiSabato went public with allegations that Strauss sexually abused him and hundreds of other athletes and that the school knew about it but did nothing to stop him.
While some cases, including DiSabato’s, have been settled, the university still faces five active lawsuits from 236 men alleging Strauss abused them, and it is their lawyers who are seeking to depose Wexner.
DiSabato, in a statement issued after the ruling, hailed the judge’s ruling as “a significant step towards long overdue accountability.”
“Mr. Wexner’s sworn testimony is essential to understanding what university leadership knew and how systemic sexual abuse of athletes and students was allowed to continue for two decades,” his statement said. “No amount of wealth or influence should place anyone beyond scrutiny when survivors of sexual abuse are still seeking justice.”
Strauss, who died by suicide in 2005, preyed on hundreds of men from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, mostly under the guise of providing physicals.
An independent investigation sponsored by the university 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.
Since then, OSU has paid out $60 million in settlement money to nearly 300 victims, and its former president has publicly apologized “to each person who endured” abuse at the hands of Strauss.
In recent months, the plaintiffs have staged several protests on campus aimed at pressuring Wexner to testify in their case where they also pointedly brought up Wexner’s past friendship with Epstein.
Wexner has admitted being friends with Epstein, and his name was mentioned in a 2019 FBI email about possible co-conspirators that was made public as part of the ongoing release of Epstein files by the Justice Department.
The assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the Epstein investigation said at the time that Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor a target, a spokesperson for Wexner said. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again, he added.
In a 2019 letter to his Wexner Foundation, Wexner said he cut ties with Epstein after Epstein was accused of sexually abusing minors in Florida. Epstein died by suicide in 2019.
A batch of Epstein documents a U.S. district judge in New York released in January 2024 includes an allegation made by the late Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Guiffre, who said she was forced to have sex with Wexner numerous times.
Wexner has repeatedly denied the allegation.
Another Epstein accuser, Maria Farmer, alleged in a 2020 lawsuit against the Epstein estate that she Epstein assaulted her in 1996 at an Ohio property “owned and secured” by the Wexners.
Wexner has publicly denied having any knowledge of the incident.
The lawyers for the plaintiffs have also deposed other prominent Ohioans with ties to OSU, like Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who was the assistant wrestling coach at the university from 1986 to 1994, before he went into politics.
Jordan, who was deposed in July, has repeatedly and publicly denied any knowledge that Strauss was preying on the athletes.
