Two years ago, a group of ex-Colton High School football stars claimed sexual abuse by high school trainer Tiffany Strauss-Gordon.
This group also consists of a former NFL player.
Former NFL cornerback Shareece Wright has revealed he is one of the 12 people who anonymously allege that they were sexually assaulted by a former high school athletic trainer while they were still minors, per court documents and interviews obtained by ESPN’s John Barr.
Wright told ESPN’s Outside the Lines that he hopes coming forward will “stop it from happening to other kids.”
“The less it’s kept a secret, the harder it is for it to continue to happen,” Wright said.
Wright alleges that when he was 15 back in 2002, Tiffany Strauss-Gordon, who was 21 at the time and is the daughter of former Colton football coach Harold Strauss, “became increasingly flirtatious, displaying favoritism toward him and giving him a pet nickname, behavior he now recognizes as grooming,” per Barr.
The abuse allegedly escalated over the next three years as he further claimed Strauss-Gordon touched him inappropriately and performed oral sex on him during treatment sessions in that timeframe.
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During his junior year at age 17, Wright alleges that he had “multiple sexual encounters” with Strauss-Gordon in the school’s training facilities. He added he had sex with Strauss-Gordon during weekly team dinners at Harold Strauss’ home.
Wright said players and coaches also joked about Strauss-Gordon’s behavior. They referred to oral sex as the “Tiffany treatment.”
“You’ve got football, you’ve got the coach’s daughter, you’ve got a permissive school environment where it’s allowed to happen. I mean, you’ve got sort of a perfect storm of sexual abuse that could be covered up easily,” Wright’s attorney, Morgan Stewart, told ESPN.
The report further states that school officials knew of allegations against Strauss-Gordon dating back to 2011.
No charges have been filed against Strauss-Gordon, who has denied the allegations.
