More than a dozen former NFL players join sex abuse lawsuits against Ohio State University

All say they were preyed on decades ago by the late Dr. Richard Strauss when they played football for the Buckeyes.

Thirty former Ohio State University football players, including more than a dozen who went on to play in the NFL, signed on to the class action lawsuit brought by other ex-OSU students who say they were sexually abused decades ago by campus doctor Richard Strauss.

While the eight-year legal battle to get OSU to pay damages over allegations that it failed to protect them from Strauss has thus far been led largely by former college wrestlers, this new group includes prominent former members of the Buckeye football team like Al Washington, Ray Ellis and Keith Ferguson, all three of whom went on to play pro football, former OSU wrestler Mike DiSabato announced in a press release Thursday.

Attorney Rocky Ratliff, who is a former OSU wrestler and one of the Strauss survivors currently suing the school, confirmed Thursday that he is representing the 30 football players who have signed engagement letters to join the class action lawsuit that he is affiliated with.

“They signed up under me, but eventually they will be part of the class action lawsuit,” he said.

The group of men formerly played for NFL teams that include the Chicago Bears, the Dallas Cowboys, the Detroit Lions, the Cleveland Browns and the former San Diego Chargers.

“When you play football, you encounter obstacles, and when I was a Buckeye, I decided not to let what happened to me defeat me, so I kept quiet,” Washington, 67, told NBC News ahead of the announcement Thursday. “But I’ve been living with this a long time, and it’s time to settle this once and for all.”

“I love Ohio State, but I want Ohio State to take some accountability for what happened to us,” said Washington, who later played for the New York Jets.

Like the other men suing the school, Washington and the other former OSU football players allege that Strauss sexually abused them under the guise of giving them the physicals they were required to undergo before they were allowed to play for OSU.

Washington, who runs a private insurance company in Columbus, Ohio, said he became aware of the scope of the Strauss abuse allegations and the legal actions against OSU several years after DiSabato went public in 2018 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.

But Washington hesitated to come forward because he didn’t want to jeopardize the career of his son, also named Al Washington, who was then a linebackers coach at OSU and is now a linebackers coach for the Miami Dolphins.

“I didn’t want him to be penalized for something that affected me,” Washington said.

NBC News has reached out to OSU for comment about the 30 men joining the lawsuit but didn’t immediately receive a response. The university and its former president have previously publicly apologized “to each person who endured” abuse at the hands of Strauss.

Ohio State has been battling Strauss-related lawsuits in the Southern District of Ohio since 2018.

As of April 15, the school has settled with 317 survivors for more than $61 million, according to a spokesperson for OSU. But the university is still facing five active lawsuits in the Southern District of Ohio from 236 men alleging Strauss abused them.

Strauss, who died by suicide in 2005, preyed on hundreds of men from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, according to an independent investigation sponsored by the university.

The investigation, conducted 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.

One of those former coaches accused by DiSabato and numerous other former OSU wrestlers of doing nothing to stop Strauss from abusing them was Rep. Jim Jordan, the powerful Republican congressman from Ohio who was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1986 to 1994.

Jordan has repeatedly denied any knowledge of what Strauss allegedly did to the athletes and he is not named in the Perkins Coie report.