COLUMBUS, Ohio— The Ohio State Medical Board has started re-examining about 1,500 sexual assault cases that it closed without taking action, after an administration task force found the board did nothing about a report warning that former Ohio State University team doctor Richard Strauss was sexually abusing students.
Gov. Mike DeWine, who asked for the review, said he will also ask other state medical licensing boards – including the state nursing, dental, psychology, and pharmacy boards – to report to the task force how they oversee investigations, work with law enforcement, incorporate survivor-centered techniques, and keep information confidential.
“I have deep concern that there could be other cases similar to this one,” the governor said at a Statehouse news conference Friday. “We don’t know that, but we need to find out.”
DeWine said he understood that it’s a “major undertaking” for the medical board to review decades of closed sexual assault investigations -- which total about 1,500 cases, according to Sarah Ackman, the governor’s deputy legal counsel.
“But I shudder to think there could be other predator physicians still practicing in the state of Ohio or other places around the country,” the governor said.
If any cases are found to be wrongly closed, they should be reopened for possible disciplinary action, including revoking medical licenses and referring the case to law enforcement, DeWine said.
The medical board began reviewing the closed cases almost immediately following the governor’s news conference, according to board spokeswoman Tessie Pollock.
The governor’s task force, which he convened to study whether the state medical board knew about Strauss’ abuse of at least 177 young men between 1979 and 1998, found that a board investigator issued a report in 1996 concluding that Strauss “has been performing inappropriate genital exams on male students for years.” The investigator began looking into Strauss, ironically, after Strauss filed a complaint with the medical board about another doctor, according to Tom Stickrath, director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
However, DeWine said, the report fell into “a black hole,” and the board closed the case without revoking Strauss’ medical license or notifying law enforcement. Files from 1997 show a medical board attorney intended to proceed with a case against Strauss, but for some reason that never happened, the governor said.
Strauss, who also abused men at an off-campus clinic, voluntarily retired from the university in 1998. He later moved to California and took his own life in 2005.
The public will likely never know exactly why the case was ignored, the governor said, as that attorney, as well as several others who had the power to move the case forward, have since died.
“Who knew what is an open question,” DeWine said, noting that it’s common for only a fraction of medical board members to know about a particular investigation.
The governor also said he will ask the medical board to look into possible disciplinary action against physicians who were identified in the report as possibly knowing about Strauss’ sexual misconduct but who said nothing to authorities.
Ohio State personnel knew about Strauss’ abuse of students since 1979, and the school suspended him in 1996 from treating students, but law enforcement and the medical board were never notified, according to DeWine and an outside report. Failing to report a crime is a misdemeanor in Ohio.
In its report, the task force made a number of recommendations to the state medical board, including:
Requiring licensed physicians to report any suspected sexual misconduct within 30 days; Creating more oversight for how and when the board should close a sexual impropriety case;
- Making more of its records available to the public,
- Using victim advocates during investigations,
- Pushing to amend state law to specifically make it a crime not to report criminal acts by physicians.
DeWine said it was “horrible” that Strauss continued to abuse patients even after the medical board investigator issued her report warning of his actions.
“Part of what we hope comes out of this horrible tragedy is that we’re trying to change the culture,” the governor said. “And the culture should be – if you see something, put your hand up. Report it.”