Former Mich. wrestlers speak out against doctor

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — The whistleblower whose letter to University of Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel alleging sexual assault sparked an investigation into a former school doctor says he was inspired by the women who testified against convicted Michigan State physician Larry Nassar.

An attorney for Tad DeLuca said Thursday that his client complained to his wrestling coach in 1975 that Dr. Robert E. Anderson molested him during medical exams. In response, thencoach Bill Johannesen humiliated Mr. DeLuca, kicked him off the team and effectively removed his financial assistance, the attorney said.

“I spoke up again by letter in 2018 after hearing an NPR story about the MSU gymnasts, women who I am in awe of,” Mr. DeLuca said at a news conference in suburban Detroit. “Once again, the University of Michigan ignored me.

“I’m here today to speak up again, to let the University of Michigan know that I will not be ignored.”

Mr. DeLuca’s 2018 letter of complaint about Anderson, now deceased, led to a university police investigation that became public last week. Two other former Michigan wrestlers who allege they were abused by Anderson also spoke to reporters Thursday: Tom Evashevski and Andy Hrovat, the first athlete to publicly say Anderson molested him.

Mr. Evashevski was in school with DeLuca at Michigan in the mid-1970s. Mr. Hrovat was a star wrestler in the late 1990s for the Wolverines and went on to compete for the U.S. at the 2008 Olympics.

“These were and are physically and mentally tough men,” said attorney Parker

Stinar, who represents the trio. “But they were all victims of sexual abuse and victims of an institution that ignored warning after warning after warning about a predator preying on young individuals.”

Mr. Stinar, who met with the school’s general counsel Thursday afternoon, predicts “hundreds of more victims” will emerge, and that his firm already represents more than a dozen.

Mr. DeLuca put his complaints about Anderson in writing in 1975 in a letter to Mr. Johannesen. Subsequently, Mr. Johannesen read Mr. DeLuca’s letter to his teammates in an effort to humiliate him, kicked him off the team and took away his scholarship, according to Mr. Stinar.

Mr. Johannesen denied in interviews this week that any of his student-athletes ever told him Anderson touched them inappropriately.