Clooney to produce series on OSU scandal

SANDUSKY — Film star George Clooney announced he will produce a documentary series about a long-running sexual abuse scandal at Ohio State University, where a doctor sexually abused athletes and other students for many years. The planned new documentary, announced at Hollywood Reporter, is based on a 2020 Sports Illustrated cover story by Jon Wertheim, "Why Aren't More People Talking About the Ohio State Sex Abuse Scandal?," which documented the abuses done by former OSU doctor Dr. Richard Strauss, who committed suicide in 2005. Wertheim will be the executive producer for the series. It hasn't been announced yet where the series will air, the Hollywood Reporter article said. The series is being made by Smokehouse Pictures, owned by Clooney and Grant Heslov. Strauss was allowed for many years to serve as a physician for the athletic department; university officials apparently ignored multiple complaints. When Strauss was finally dropped from his role in the athletic department and removed as a Student Health Services doctor, the university allowed him to stay on as a tenured professor and took no action against his medical license. The Sports Illustrated article includes interviews with athletes from northern Ohio, including Mark Coleman, a native of Fremont, and Dave Mulvin of Erie County. Coleman alleged that U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, an assistant wrestling coach at OSU from 1986 to 1994, knew about the abuse and did nothing. Jordan has denied knowing anything about the abuse. Wertheim's article argues that the OSU scandal has received little national attention in comparison to sexual abuse scandals at Penn State and Michigan State and that "the tangential involvement of Jordan marked virtually the only time the Strauss scandal became a national news story." Jordan's defenders argue that he had a junior role in the athletic department and that he has received scrutiny for political reasons when OSU officials with greater responsibility got away with doing nothing, despite documentation they knew what was going on. Citing a report commissioned by OSU, Wertheim's article states, "Perhaps most damningly, the report cites more than 40 Ohio State coaches and administrators and athletic directors who did not respond adequately, going all the way to Andy Geiger, the OSU athletic director from 1994-2005, who has told the Columbus media he doesn't recall any complaints of Strauss's sexual misconduct during his tenure." Wertheim said he's pleased there will be more scrutiny of what happened. "Because these courageous men made the decision to remain silent no longer, we can finally begin to hold the abuser, and those who were complicit in their silence, accountable for their actions — and inactions," Wertheim said in a statement to Hollywood Reporter.