Ohio State abuse victims’ lawyers unsuccessfully try to subpoena businessman Leslie Wexner

Lawyers for a group of former Ohio State University students who are suing their alma mater for allegedly failing to protect them from a sexual predator have asked the federal judge overseeing the case to help them deliver a subpoena to Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner.

Wexner, the businessman who founded L Brands, which included retailers Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, served on the OSU board of trustees “during the time period at the heart of this case” when Dr. Richard Strauss preyed on hundreds of students, the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in the Southern District of Ohio.

A 1978 employment application for Dr. Richard Strauss from Ohio State University personnel files. Strauss, who died in 2005, has been accused of sexual misconduct by former student-athletes.Ohio State University via AP

But since September, the lawyers wrote, Wexner’s security has repeatedly thwarted their process servicers’ attempts to deliver a subpoena to have him testify and turn over “relevant documents.”

Wexner is not being accused of any wrongdoing in the case, and his lawyer has said Wexner has no information relevant to the case.

When they tried to serve Wexner at an OSU board meeting in September, they learned that Wexner “no longer attends meetings.”

The lawyers enlisted the help of Franklin County sheriff’s deputies, who tried and failed to deliver the subpoena to Wexner on two separate occasions, according to the court filing.

Wexner’s lawyer, Matthew Zeiger, has refused to forward the subpoena to his well-heeled client and “continues to dispute that Mr. Wexner possesses any discoverable information,” court documents from the plaintiffs state.

The lawyers for the former students are now asking Judge Michael H. Watson for an alternate way to deliver the subpoena to Wexner, like leaving the document with the security officers protecting the billionaire’s home in New Albany, Ohio, mailing it to his residence or sending it electronically to his lawyer.

“It cannot be reasonably disputed that Mr. Wexner is aware of Plaintiffs’ request for his deposition testimony in this case, and because Plaintiffs have diligently — but unsuccessfully — attempted to personally serve Mr. Wexner, the Court should grant their request to serve Mr. Wexner using the above-described methods,” the lawyers wrote in the court filing.

While Wexner’s lawyer has said his client has no relevant knowledge for this case, the plaintiffs’ lawyers point to specific examples where Wexner might have information useful to the case.

“It defies all logic and reason that Mr. Wexner would not have any knowledge about Strauss or his victims, especially given that he was a Board member during Strauss’s disciplinary hearings and the nonrenewal of his employment contract in 1996,” they wrote in the court filing.

Wexner was “OSU’s biggest benefactor” when the Strauss revelations emerged in 2018, and his wife, Abigail Wexner, was serving on the OSU board of trustees at the time.

NBC News has reached out to Zeiger for comment. His father and law partner, John Zeiger, currently chairs OSU’s board of trustees.

A spokesman for Wexner declined to comment.

Wexner’s name was invoked recently by survivors of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in their push to have the “Epstein files” made public.

Epstein was Wexner’s money manager for almost two decades, but Wexner claims he cut ties with Epstein in 2007 after the first allegations surfaced that Epstein was trafficking and sexually abusing young women.

A batch of Epstein documents released in January 2024 includes an allegation made by the late Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who said she was forced to have sex with Wexner numerous times.

Wexner has repeatedly denied the allegation. Another Epstein accuser, Maria Farmer, claimed in 2020 that she was assaulted by Epstein in 1996 at an Ohio property “owned and secured” by the Wexners. Wexner publicly denied having any knowledge of this incident.

Ohio State has been battling lawsuits since 2018, when a whistleblowing former wrestler named Mike DiSabato went public with allegations that Strauss had sexually abused him and hundreds of other athletes and that the school knew about it but did nothing to stop him.

Strauss preyed on hundreds of men from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. He died by suicide in 2005.

An independent investigation sponsored by Ohio State 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.

Since then, OSU has said it has paid out $60 million in settlement money to nearly 300 victims, and its former president has publicly apologized “to each person who endured” abuse at the hands of Strauss.

But the university still faces five active lawsuits from 236 men alleging they were abused by Strauss, and it is their lawyers who are seeking to depose Wexner.

In July, the lawyers deposed Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who was the assistant wrestling coach at the university from 1986 to 1994, before he went into politics.

Jordan has repeatedly and publicly denied any knowledge that Strauss was preying on the athletes.

They have also deposed former Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger and Archie Griffin, a former OSU football star and assistant athletic director.