When survivors strike back
With a personal shoutout to Colleen Marshall of NBC4.
The Ohio State Board of Trustees convened on Thursday with survivors of Dr. Richard Strauss’s systemic abuse on hand to demand justice.
As The Rooster reported in September, Central Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner is dodging service of a subpoena in the lawsuit against Ohio State for its admitted negligence.
Coincidentally enough for Wexner, his personal lawyer, John Zeiger, also serves as the chairman of the Board of Trustees.
I was skeptical that corporate media would give Zeiger the rinsing he deserved; the kind of rinsing that might have stopped a slug from amassing so much power if it had happened earlier and more often in his career.
That skepticism was misplaced. Several outlets were on hand, including the three television stations.
Combined with the survivors' poignant signs and fiery testimonials, we turned the heat up on a collective group of influential people who are now on the hook for Wexner’s cowardice.
We’ll start at the beginning.
Michael DiSabato educates a local reporter about Wexner’s depravity
The world might not know about Dr. Richard Strauss if not for former Ohio State wrestler Michael DiSabato, who was the original whistleblower in the case.
DiSabato was on hand Thursday, giving lessons to local media about the Wexner’s lurid history with international sex-trafficking pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The reporter, whom I won’t name, remarked that she found Wexner’s personalized birthday card to Epstein to be “disturbing.”
Former Congressman Pat Tiberi did not want to dance, at all
Former Congressman Pat Tiberi made his cameo debut in the Rooster Cinematic Universe in 2023, when I was in the process of knocking Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost down Broad Street for his anti-abortion cowardice.
Tiber is the newest Ohio State Trustee, appointed by Governor Mike DeWine in August.
Tiberi didn’t see me coming, instead mistaking me for somebody who recognized a jolly old Congressman as he strolled into his board meeting.
You can see that energy drain from his face when asked if we would get justice for the Ohio State survivors today.
Spokesman Ben Johnson on the Charlie Kirk moment of silence snafu and Leslie Wexner’s whereabouts
Back in September, The Rooster broke the news about Ohio State planning a pregame moment of silence for slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
That original report sparked a firestorm. Spokesman Ben Johnson, who had just been exposed for lying about snipers training their guns on peaceful pro-Palestine protesters, referenced The Rooster’s reporting as a “false rumor.”
After the meeting, I decided to confront Johnson about his disparaging remarks, which were proven false by the university color team accidentally lowering the flag to half-mast during Script Ohio.
As you’ll see, it’s a lot easier for Johnson to leverage the power of his institutional employer to manipulate favorable media coverage than to stand on the merits of what actually happened.
The Rooster stands by the original report, and we await a records request that we hope will further underscore what we already know to be true.
But not wanting to devolve into petty hectoring of Johnson about months-old reporting, I popped what I thought was a pertinent question: Where was Leslie Wexner?
Johnsohn said I’d have to ask “his people.”
Weren’t Wexner’s “people” right over there in Chairman Zeiger?
Further questioning about the conflict of interest led Johnson to end the interview with a facetious, “It was fun.”
I regret breaking a cardinal rule of this business in “always keep the camera rolling,” because I missed a survivor retorting, “Yeah, Ben. It’s been real fun for us, too, watching you lie for eight years.”
Les Wexner’s personal flunky enters the THUNDERDOME
The trophy of the day was Chairman Zeiger.
There is no law preventing powerful people from taking the cowardly way out by refusing to talk to the media. But the beauty of the First Amendment is that there’s nothing preventing the media from asking those questions and making those powerful people “walk the plank,” as I like to say.
Every American, no matter their political persuasion, views powerful people shuffling away from respectful questioning the same way. And none if it is good.
It’s a lonely road behaving that way at the Statehouse or even City Hall. And I totally expected that to be the case on Thursday, even when I was sprinting toward Zeiger in the parking lot after I had staked out a potential back-door exit.
But then Collen Marshall of NBC4 appeared out of nowhere. And I almost shed a tear, despite recently criticizing her softball interview with City Council President Shannon Hardin in the wake of the Councilman Emmanuel Remy scandal.
It was a lot like how I imagine seeing Gandalf on his white steed at Helm’s Deep, shortly after I had thought the battle was lost.
10TV and ABC6 got in on the circus, too. And together, we ruined Zeiger’s day. That’s how it’s done, folks. That’s how the game needs to be played. You need to make guys like Zeiger as uncomfortable as possible and make them reckon with their sins.
NBC4 put together a piece that, frankly, would have me working at Burger King if it were commonplace in Columbus corporate media:
You gotta love Zeiger’s smarminess in refusing to stand and talk to the media, and then issuing a statement that blamed the survivors for refusing to clarify what knowledge they suspected that Wexner possessed about the Dr. Strauss scandal.
As if that’s not the entire point of the deposition!
You have to wonder why Zeiger won’t resign from the Board. It’s a blatant conflict of interest that will continue to fester the longer Wexner evades service, which he will, because he cannot answer questions under oath despite having a battery of lawyers sitting next to him.
Oh well! That’s not my problem. The Rooster will have more as this story develops.
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