|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 18, 2011 10:13:49 GMT -5
I'm sure some are wondering. espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7248184/syracuse-police-investigating-bernie-fine-molesting-boy-1980sI grew up in Syracuse, had season tix to SU football and basketball. Went to SU summer basketball camps. Have met and conversed with Boeheim and Bernie Fine on several occasions. Have friends that work in the athletic department and are friends with both Boeheim and Fine. Of course, on other message boards people want me to go after SU with the same way I criticized Penn State. But, essentially here's the timeline (and the differences). 2002- The accuser (Davis) goes to the Syracuse Post-Standard with an accusation of being molested by Bernie Fine. The Post-Standard does an investigation and the people that Davis claims will corroborate his claim...never corroborate his claims. 2003 - Davis now goes to ESPN. ESPN does the same thing that the Post-Standard did...and doesn't run a story since they cannot get anybody to validate Davis' claims. 2003-2005 - Davis goes to the Syracuse police and makes the accusation. The police run into the same thing that the Post-Standard and ESPN run into and do not press charges. 2005 - Police report the accusation to Syracuse University. Syracuse University does 4-month long investigation and cannot find any wrongdoing by Fine. Nov. 2011 - Penn State scandal breaks. November 17th - Davis comes forward again to ESPN and this time has his step-brother (Lang), claim he was also molested by Fine. ESPN runs this story, although they have not validated Lang's claims...even though Lang is Davis' step-brother. I just think it's been investigated by 4 separate entities...the school did an investigation even after the police did one and couldn't find any wrongdoing. In reality, the Post-Standard has always gone after the athletic programs when they can and ESPN wouldn't shy away from the story, if there was one as well. All 4 investigated it and couldn't find anything. 3JACK
|
|
|
Post by cwdlaw223 on Nov 18, 2011 10:37:23 GMT -5
The two accusers looked high on TV today. ESPN should be ashamed for trying to create a story. They won't be. All about creating stories to sell airtime. That's what the media is right now. Judge, jury and executioner. Duke Lacrosse all over again. Why? Because man has always wanted to point to someone else's sin to make him feel good and holy. The Pharisees never died out!!!
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 18, 2011 10:44:31 GMT -5
I was told that Davis and Lang looked like they were on crack.
When I watched the interview, Davis looked edgy. Working where I do in Florida, there is a problem with meth and it's not uncommon for me to go out to Subway for lunch and be standing right next to somebody who is tweeking from doing meth.
That's what Davis sorta looked like to me. However, I could also understand being extremely nervous speaking out in front of a camera to a national audience.
Lang looked like he was drunk though. Then again, victims of child molestation tend to have drinking problems later on in life.
Former SU asst coach Tim Welsh stated that when he was an assistant for 3 years at SU, he roomed with Fine for every road game. This would be a little after when Davis is accusing Fine molested him.
Still, if the asst. coaches share rooms (which seems plausible), then it puts a major hole in Davis' story.
As far as ESPN goes...you have to have shame to be ashamed.
3JACK
|
|
|
Post by cwdlaw223 on Nov 18, 2011 13:12:36 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 22, 2011 14:06:32 GMT -5
Just an update of sorts: There's been an overwhelming amount of former players, former assistant coaches, former team managers, former ball boys, etc that have backed Fine. In fact, there is one boy that Fine also treated 'like one of his own' that attests that Fine never did anything remotely inappropriate with him. Fine also took him to Hawaii when he was a boy. Now the DA is getting involved. Although the DA seems more or less miffed that he wasn't informed about this in 2003. The police are saying that they could not get anybody to corroborate the story or show any evidence, so there was no need to inform the DA. The DA wants to see the files, although the police are resisting. So the DA has filed for a subpeona. However, it sounds that the Syracuse mayor wants the police to investigate the claim of the step-brother, then come forward with any information they may have gained. The DA is a bit of a peculiar situation here. He's actually been critical of the Syracuse University judiciary review process for which he believes has been *unfair* to the *players.* In fact, there was a case about possible sexual assault between the players and a girl in 2008 and the DA actually had this sent to a Grand Jury Investigation in order to protect the *players* from what he deems is an unfair judiciary process that the University holds. Basically, if you are in trouble with the law or accused of something and you are a student-athlete at SU...even if you are *not* arrested...they bring you in front of a judiciary review, consisting of 3 SU law students to determine your fate with the school. The DA has been critical of this because the law students have not even passed the bar and the other obvious holes in the system. One of which being if you are *not* arrested for the accusation, you *cannot* be represented by an attorney. That's why the DA in 2008 had the players involved in a Grand Jury investigation, so if the University tried to use their judiciary review, the players could be represented by an attorney. But here...the DA is pissed off at the police and university for not informing him about the accusation. I don't quite understand why since the police investigated and found nothing with the story. The university actually did their own private investigation, hiring a private law firm to investigate for 4 months and they came up with nothing as well. Part of me thinks the DA could be pandering to the constituency and trying to protect himself from looking bad in light of the Penn State scandal. But, part of me thinks that he may have ran into issues with the police not letting him know before. I think the mayor is sticking up for the police. Jason Whitlock wrote a great article that I thought hit the nail on the head msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/bernie-fine-syracuse-story-irresposible-reporting-by-espn-112111I find ESPN's reporting reprehensible, hypocritical and insane: 1) ESPN would not report the allegations for sexual assault against Ben Roethlisberger despite the fact that he was involved in a verifiable civil suit. Yet, they go after Fine in a case they investigated and could not corroborate the claim by Davis. 2) Hearing Mark Schwarz say that Davis' story is remarkably in line with his story in 2003 is plain idiotic. It's the same story that he told you in 2003...the story you didn't run with because you could not find it credible. It's like saying a guy who is lying has kept the same lie. 3) Even if Fine is guilty, like Whitlock said 'this cannot be the standard of journalism.' If it is, then I could just grab me and a buddy and accuse Mark Schwarz of molesting both of us and ESPN would HAVE to report it. 3JACK
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 23, 2011 13:14:38 GMT -5
This entire thing is turning into a mess.
An ex-girlfriend of Davis (the accuser) is claiming she was told about this in 2002 and persuaded him to come forward.
OKAY....
She also claims she contacted the DA's office, the second-in-command. She left a message and never heard back
OKAY....
The DA (Fitzpatrick) has criticized the University and the Police for not informing him about the incident. Both entities say that they couldn't get the accusation verified or corroborated and there was no need. Still, Fitzpatrick is pissed about this.
OKAY...
So, Davis' ex-girlfriend says SHE contacted the DA's office and never heard back. Fitzpatrick sticks up for his second-in-command and says that is *impossible* and the 2nd in command is 'famous for returning calls.'
OKAY....
This would lead me to believe that Fitzpatrick is more or less calling his ex-girlfriend a liar. INSTEAD, he says that it makes him question the POLICE even more.
I actually believe she did call the 2nd in command and she probably never heard back from him. I don't think the 2nd in command is something that somebody would know the name unless they actually got the name and called the DA.
Whether or not she got a return call or not is beyond my guess.
Even still, the media is trying to report it like it's damning of Fine, which make little sense. It's really damning of Fitzpatrick and his demands for the files comes off as wacky.
Unfortunately, I think we are seeing a lot of CYA and politicking going on. And we still haven't seen any evidence against Fine. I tend to think Syracuse mayor Stephanie Miner's course of action of letting the police investigate it is the best move for everybody involved, but I think she's doing that for political reasons (if Fine is innocent, she can always claim she stood up for the police when she campaigns again).
3JACK
|
|
|
Post by 94monarch on Nov 27, 2011 19:35:52 GMT -5
That audio tape I heard today is disturbing.
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 27, 2011 20:44:35 GMT -5
I would recommend reading the entire transcript. I had the feeling that ESPN was going to piecemeal what they had to protect themselves because they did take a blind accusation and run with it.
Still...read the entire transcript. She never says anything about Bernie and Davis with Davis being underage. It more or less reads like she knows that Bernie is a closet homosexual and that he had relations with Davis (what age Davis was is still in question).
But, perhaps she is just delusional and doesn't understand the difference between a gay man and a sexual predator.
Still, I think Fine should be fired. It seems like he took Davis in and then tried to force himself upon him with holding a place to stay and money he gave him over his head. To me, that's reprehensible. That and his wife pretty much admits that she had sex with Davis when he was 18 as well (NY state law is that the person has to be 17 if the other person is over 20 years old.).
That to me is pretty twisted. So while I would like think that Fine's wife would know the difference, maybe she doesn't. Still, we need to know what exactly Davis is claiming and what happened. We also need to know what exactly the police were told and what they knew, along with the Post Standard, ESPN and Boeheim and the Unversity.
3JACK
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 27, 2011 21:05:18 GMT -5
Well...whaddya know. Bernie Fine has been fired.
Good riddance.
Now, let's find out what exactly happened and hold others accountable.
3JACK
|
|
|
Post by cwdlaw223 on Nov 27, 2011 21:18:13 GMT -5
Welcome to this shameful club Syracuse. Unfortunately, PSU's scandal is much, much worse.
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 27, 2011 21:46:58 GMT -5
I guess what I don't understand is how somebody could be telling the truth, yet the Post-Standard, ESPN, the police and the University...could not uncover the truth until now.
Part of me believes that is because the allegations pointed to Davis and Fine having a sexual relationship when Davis was 17 years old or older (legal age in NY).
Still, I don't like the idea of giving a poor kid a place to live and lending him money with the idea that you can have sex with him.
And I would find it extremely disturbing if Laurie Fine was talking about this with Davis in that tone and knew that Bernie molested him as a boy. That would be a warped sense of the world that I'm not familiar with.
The thing where she says 'it's all about the dick to him' is just something I can't imagine somebody casually talking to a boy who had been molested about. It's very cavalier and that would be extremely disturbing to me if that was the case.
3JACK
|
|
|
Post by gmbtempe on Nov 29, 2011 16:52:04 GMT -5
what a bunch of nutjobs.
Boeheim looks like an idiot. That being said I know people who know him and I have always heard that he is a good guy, he should just have not have said a thing.
When you dont know all the facts you should just say "no comment".
Male sexual predators are often not homosexual, they just have access to males more so than females.
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 29, 2011 18:45:19 GMT -5
what a bunch of nutjobs. Boeheim looks like an idiot. That being said I know people who know him and I have always heard that he is a good guy, he should just have not have said a thing. When you dont know all the facts you should just say "no comment". He thought he knew the facts and it was quite reasonable to believe so. The school, Post-Standard, ESPN and the police all did an investigation and came up with nothing. And he knew Fine for *50* years. Where I place a lot of the blame is on ESPN and the Post-Standard. They had these tapes. They have admitted to it. "When we had the audio in the past we had never been able to confirm that it was Laurie Fine," ESPN Senior Vice President & Director of News Vince Doria explains. "Part of it was we had no independent video of her and her voice – something we could look at and say, 'Yes, that’s her and yes, that appears to be her voice.' This time around when we re-engaged on the story we did in fact have a video we found online of her serving a meal to Bernie and a number of young men who may or may not have been Syracuse players. In this video you could clearly hear her. This allowed us to submit the audio to a voice recognition expert, which we did last week."So, they mean to tell me that they couldn't get *any* records of Laurie Fine's voice for EIGHT years. And why didn't they give these to the police so the police could use it for their own investigation? But, it gets worse: Schwarz also explained on CNN why they never shared the audio tape with the authorities. "Journalists are not necessarily required or expected to hand over evidence that they did not obtain or create themselves to the police," he told CooperESPN is no better than Joe Paterno is with the Sandusky case. He did the bare minimum legally to cover his own ass. ESPN and Schwarz didn't have the gumption to hand the evidence to the police and know that they are not legally bound to do so. The truth is, ESPN does not give a shit about Bobby Davis and those who Fine allegedly molested. If they did, they would have turned it over to the police. What is the REASON for not turning the evidence over the police, Mark Schwarz? Laziness? Carelessness? Callousness? If we think about ESPN and what they neglected to do, it even goes beyond Davis. If there are other victims after 2003, ESPN could have helped put a stop to it by giving the evidence to the police. Think about the police who now look bad (and I think unjustly so) because ESPN didn't give them the tape. Same with the people in the University. I'd like to say that I'm shocked that there isn't more outrage towards ESPN, but sadly I'm not. They just have anybody in the media to camp out in front of their office. 3JACK
|
|
|
Post by gmbtempe on Nov 29, 2011 21:29:01 GMT -5
I am not going to defend ESPN, cant stand that place.
The thing about these sexual predators is that some of them are pretty good at covering so just because you work with someone does not mean you know everything about them. I would not have had a problem if he just said he supported his friend, it was that he attacked the alleged victim which is a reason many victims don't want to come forward.
His comments in case
Boeheim told ESPN: "I know this kid (Davis), but I never saw him in any rooms or anything. It is a bunch of a thousand lies that he has told. You don't think it is a little funny that his (relative) is coming forward?
"He supplied four names to the university that would corroborate his story. None of them did. … there is only one side to this story. He is lying."
Boeheim also questioned Davis' motives. "Why would he go to ESPN? What are people looking for here? I believe they are looking for money. I believe they saw what happened at Penn State and they are using ESPN to get money."
|
|
|
Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 29, 2011 22:33:45 GMT -5
I'm not sure why it's *so* stupid in your eyes.
He knew Fine very well for 50 years. He was accused before of this and 4 different entities each did their own investigation and could not get any evidence or any of the people he said *would* corroborate his story to actually corroborate the story.
He attacked Davis because at the time he had good reason to believe he was lying. At the time...how much evidence do you need?
Let's say we find out that OJ did not kill Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman and it was somebody else and it is proven that it was not OJ beyond a shadow of a doubt. Would we be stupid for having condemned OJ?
Like I said, ESPN really fucked all of this up. Not only with holding on to the tape for the past 8 years...but, had they gone and waited for the police to investigate this first before reporting it...all of this stuff changes.
I don't blame Boeheim for saying what he did and he's apologized for those remarks because we've found that Fine is not the person we thought he was. That's why he's kept his job and why Joe Paterno got canned immediately.
3JACK
|
|