Former Ohio State University students trying to get billionaire Les Wexner to testify about Richard Strauss — a former campus doctor who allegedly abused dozens of men — staged a protest Thursday at a board of trustees meeting, where they brought up Wexner’s past friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
And they did so without uttering a word at the actual meeting.
“We wanted to let them know that Wexner has been avoiding the subpoena,” former OSU wrestler Mike DiSabato said. “They didn’t let us speak to the board.”
Nearly a dozen former OSU students held a protest outside the building before the meeting. Once inside, they silently held up posters with the words “WHERE’S WEXNER” and a photo on the other side of Wexner with a former close associate he has publicly distanced himself from — accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
“I think we made our point,” DiSabato said.
OSU’s board of trustees is chaired by John Zeiger, who is both the father and law partner of Wexner’s lawyer, Matthew Zeiger.
And it was the elder Zeiger who adjourned the meeting before Tom Lisy, a former OSU wrestler from 1986 to 1988, could deliver a statement about Wexner.
It read, in part, “We are here today to publicly express our dismay that Leslie Wexner is avoiding service of a court ordered subpoena for deposition in the Richard Strauss case.”
“We believe Mr. Wexner’s testimony will shed light” on the matter, the statement said.
OSU spokesperson Benjamin Johnson said Strauss survivors have addressed the board in the past but did not request to do so at this meeting. “There is no standing public comments portion at these meetings,” he said.
When asked about the subpoena evasion allegation Thursday, the law firm representing Wexner said in a statement it will respond in court “at the appropriate time.”
“Since early September, we have asked plaintiffs’ counsel on several occasions to identify what knowledge they believe Mr. Wexner has relevant to the Strauss matter so we could consider the request,” the statement said. “In the past three months, plaintiffs’ counsel have failed to answer that question.”
The university has been battling lawsuits since 2018, when DiSabato and other former wrestlers went public with allegations that Strauss had sexually abused them and hundreds of other students and that the school knew about it but did nothing to stop him.
Strauss allegedly preyed on hundreds of men from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. He died by suicide in 2005. He was never charged in relation to the abuse allegations, but the results of an OSU investigation published in 2019 found that “at least 177 male students were sexually abused by Strauss.”
OSU has settled most claims from survivors, saying it has paid out more than $60 million to 296 people. The school says it is still working to resolve lawsuits from plaintiffs who rejected monetary offers.
Wexner, the founder of Limited Brands, which is now called L Brands Inc. and owns Victoria’s Secret, PINK and Bath & Body Works, served on the board when Strauss allegedly abused young men at the school, mostly under the guise of doing physicals, according to the OSU report.
Last month, the lawyers for the final batch of Strauss survivors who are currently suing OSU for damages told the federal judge overseeing their case that Wexner may have information about Strauss, but has evaded their attempts to serve him with a subpoena.
They said Wexner’s private security has barred their process servicers for subpoenaing the Ohio billionaire at his home in the Columbus suburb of New Albany. They said his attorney, Matthew Zeiger, has refused to forward the subpoena to Wexner.
They asked Judge Michael H. Watson for an alternate way to deliver the subpoena to Wexner, like leaving the document with his security team, or mailing it to his residence or sending it electronically to his lawyer.
Watson still has not ruled on their request, the court docket shows.
When asked Thursday by NBC affiliate WCMH in Columbus if the school would settle the suit, OSU Athletic Director Ross Bjork said, “That’s a legal process that has to play out. ... We always think about the victims and we’re always going to have them in our hearts.”
Wexner has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the Strauss case. But his name was invoked recently by another group of survivors — the women who said they were victimized by Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and who have been pushing to have the “Epstein files” made public.
A batch of Epstein documents released by a U.S. district judge in New York 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 was assaulted by Epstein in 1996 at an Ohio property “owned and secured” by the Wexners.
Wexner has publicly denied having any knowledge of this incident as well.
But Wexner’s relationship with Epstein is well documented.
Epstein was the primary investor and money manager for Wexner. Their relationship was so close that the mogul gave Epstein power of attorney and made him a trustee of the Wexner Foundation, according to court documents.
Wexner has condemned Epstein’s crimes as “abhorrent” and claimed he was used. He said he severed ties with Epstein in 2007 after allegations that he was trafficking in and sexually abusing young women first emerged.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial in jail on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell — who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021— is seeking to get her 20-year prison sentence commuted by President Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower report to Congress.
