The hunt for Leslie Wexner
In today's dispatch, you'll see more politicians on the hook about the notorious thong salesman in 15 minutes than has probably happened in the last 40 years in this god-forsaken city.
It’s not looking good for the notorious thong salesman, Leslie Wexner.
Ohio State survivors of Dr. Richard Strauss’ systemic abuse set the tone on the billionaire last week. The survivors had a simple question: Where is Wexner?
As The Rooster reported in September, Wexner has been dodging service of a subpoena in the class-action lawsuit against Ohio State.
His personal lawyer, John Zeiger, sits as the chairman of the Board of Trustees. Zeiger’s longtime friend and former business partner, Michael Carpenter, has billed the university nearly $30 million while litigating the university’s defense.
At this point, it would almost certainly have been cheaper to pay the money to survivors to settle the case and put an end to the darkest chapter in Ohio State history.
Late Tuesday night, we received more insight as to why Wexner, a former chairman of the Ohio State Board of Trustees himself, might not want to sit for a deposition that could explore his penchant for finding himself in the orbit of incorrigible sex criminals.
From Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain of The Drop Site:
Six months after Jeffrey Epstein’s death in August 2019, the philanthropic foundation founded by billionaire fashion tycoon Leslie Wexner published an “independent review” of Epstein’s involvement in the organization, in response to concerns raised by donors and alumni of foundation-funded programs. The Wexner Foundation is one of the largest contributors to pro-Israel causes in the U.S.
The review claimed that Wexner Foundation staff had “no contact” with Epstein after his resignation as a trustee in September 2007, and, before that, he had “played no role in the management or administration of the Foundation’s operations,” had “no meaningful role in the Foundation’s budget [or] finances,” and “did not make decisions regarding the use of Foundation’s funds.” None of that is true.
Hundreds of leaked emails from Epstein’s Yahoo inbox, spanning from 2005 to 2008, contradict the Wexner Foundation report. Inside the Wexners’ family financial office in Ohio, staff treated Epstein as de facto chief financial officer, where major decisions about taxes, lines of credit, eight-figure funds transfers, and politically sensitive grants were routed through Epstein’s lawyer, and required Epstein’s approval.
This irrefutable evidence contradicts Wexner’s long-held stance that he severed ties with Epstein, then a personal confidant and financial manager, in 2007—one year after Florida authorities charged Epstein with unlawful sexual activity with a minor in Florida.
The common thread between the two men—other than the sexual depravity at which Wexner overtly hinted in his personalized birthday card to Epstein—is their love for Israel.
Drop Site’s reporting over the past month, which includes tranches of Epstein’s emails, delivers an almost insurmountable conclusion that Epstein was operating as a high-level asset to Israeli intelligence.
But thanks to Epstein’s alleged death by suicide, we can no longer get that answer from him. The best hope would be the billionaire benefactor who plucked Epstein from obscurity as a creepy high school math teacher and elevated him into the elite milieu that he enjoyed almost to his death.
We most likely will never get that deposition, despite the battery of lawyers that would accompany Wexner to obfuscate any line of questioning that couldn’t be absolved with “I don’t know.”
The next names on the chopping block are Ohio politicians from both political parties.
Even if they haven’t taken money, none of them have dared say a negative thing about Wexner in public, or ask why Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend continues to have his name plastered across the city’s most prestigious institutions in the most obvious case of charity-washing, maybe ever?
That was until this week, when The Rooster descended on the Statehouse, City Hall, and the Michael J. Dorian Building in downtown Columbus to get some of Central Ohio’s most influential names on the record.
Bulldog Bill DeMora comes out throwing haymakers if you can believe that
Senator Bill DeMora (D-Columbus) has never taken a cent of Wexner’s money. And he was at his best on Monday, raining haymakers upon Wexner’s child-sized skull.
DeMora didn’t hide from the gritty facts of the case, either, referencing the Manhattan mansion, where Epstein was finally arrested, that Wexner once gifted to him for $0.
“I think Wexner has been tied to Epstein the whole time,” DeMora said.
DeMora might be the biggest Ohio State athletics fan in the Statehouse, and he refused to defend the university on the merits in its handling of the case, saying that Wexner wouldn’t be running scared if he had nothing to hide.
Senator Andy Brenner: “That’s a problem for [Wexner].”
Senator Andy Brenner (R-Powell) didn’t run from the line of questioning, either, though he couldn’t resist a chance to throw former president Bill Clinton under the bus as another verified sex pest.
Brenner seemed to be hung up on the idea that there’s no evidence of Wexner abusing minors, while ignoring the mountain of evidence that, at the very least, he elevated and worked alongside one of the 21st century’s greatest villains, who we know repeatedly raped minors.
However, Brenner seemed open to the case. And I believe his asking me to forward the information was genuine, because, when the facts were laid out, he admitted that Wexner would have “a problem” on his hands.
You’ll also notice another thing in the video: Brenner didn’t try to deflect the questioning by saying he had no power over the Board of Trustees. He said he would call them. And that separates him from the next two Democrats on the list.
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty… what are you doing here!?
I went to City Hall on Monday night to serve a one-week notice to City Councilman Emmanuel Remy. And I did just that.
But I also noticed two security guards in the hallway outside the chamber, and I knew they weren’t for Mayor Suburbs, who almost never graces the legislative proceedings with his holy presence.
Much to my shock, the henchmen were for Congresswoman Joyce Beatty.
I blasted Beatty earlier this year, when she missed several key votes due to non-emergency hip surgery, only to show up the next week in a wheelchair with an eye bandaged from an operation that was never explained to voters.
I still believe she’s running a grave risk of running for another term at 75 years old. But to her credit, she’s been outside in the district in a way that I don’t remember in my six years of writing The Rooster.
Of all the Democrats in Columbus, she’s the one with an actual relationship with Wexner. And much to the horror of City Hall Democrats, I was able to get the Congresswoman on the hook about her old friend Leslie.
The Congresswoman deployed two time-tested tactics of seasoned politicians: Claiming they don’t have direct knowledge of the well-reported story affecting their district, or, as a last resort, pretending they couldn’t get Chairman Zeiger on the phone tomorrow if that were a thing she was interested in doing.
All things considered, I went easy on her, despite the jab about her heinous positions on Israel. But now she’s on the record about Wexner and the Strauss case for the next time we cross paths—likely on Capitol Hill after the New Year.
Congressman Jim Jordan should not expect the same grace.
Commissioner John O’Grady becomes the first Ohio politician to say they’ll donate Wexner’s money to charity
I would have been satisfied with the three previous names on the list. But I decided to get greedy and attend the Franklin County Commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday morning.
My target? Commissioner John O’Grady. And if he hadn’t attended the last meeting of the year, I would have made a beeline toward Commissioner Kevin Boyce.
Give O’Grady this much: He stood his ground despite looking like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world, even when his communications gremlin(?) started hectoring me about the audacity of questioning a public official “in their space.”
It’s not their space. It’s the people’s space. And to O’Grady’s credit, he kept talking even when I was about to let him off the hook.
But O’Grady played a similar tactic as Beatty, pretending that they had no influence or power outside the narrow scope of their legislative powers. And whenever politicians start trying to deflect about how little power they have—you know you’re hitting them where it hurts.
I didn’t let O’Grady off the hook as I did to Beatty. For one, I will always go harder on my fellow crackers with impeccable hair. But two, I knew O’Grady could take it. He knows the players. He knows about Dr. Strauss’ reign of terror. And I’m not going to let one of the most powerful politicians in Columbus pretend they have no power outside their little chamber.
I would have been satisfied with O’Grady’s half-hearted attempt to condemn Wexner. That in itself would have been news.
But thanks to a little over three minutes of hostile questioning, O’Grady became the first politician in Ohio history to say he’ll donate Wexner’s money to charity.
Do I think O’Grady went to his office and tasked his staff with that work? No. But I damn sure expect that money to be out of his hands the next time I come knocking, which will be in early 2026.
Because I’ll let the brave and noble soldiers of the Patriots Caucus know this much: The Wexner story isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it will go to another unprecedented level next week.
Wexner might be too rich to escape legal consequences. But even he can’t escape the court of public opinion in a city that, by all accounts, he abandoned a long time ago.
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I hope you're having your bike armored. I wouldn't put anything past some of these people.
Go get ‘em Rooster!