• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Accused Former Syracuse Assistant Bernie Fine

jlb1705;2052374; said:
For someone who was trying to deflect attention/blame/guilt, Boeheim sure used the phrase "on my watch" an awful lot in that post-game presser.

It seemed to me that the question must have included the phrase 'on your watch', and he was reacting strongly to that. But he didn't help himself by repeating it a lot.
 
Upvote 0
The tape of the phone call with Mrs. Fine was made in 2002. ESPN and the local Syracuse paper heard it in 2003, but didn't go forward with the story. Syracuse University did their own investigation in 2005, but never heard that tape.

As shown on ESPN's Outside the Lines today: Nancy Cantor, Syracuse Chancellor since 2004, making a strong statement (emphasis added by me):

"Had that tape surfaced in 2003, Fine would have been fired. Had we been given the tape in 2005, we would have gone straight to the authorities. Had we been given the tape on Nov. 17, there would have been no 'administrative leave'. Fine would have been fired on the spot. When the tape emerged for the first time on Nov. 27, we fired Fine. Those who held onto the tape for nearly 10 years owe everybody an explanation."
ESPN's Vince Doria, Senior VP & Director of News:

"(Bobby Davis) made this tape recording without our involvement, we were not present when the tape was made. The tape purported to be a phone conversation between Bobby Davis and Laurie Fine, Bernie's wife. On that tape, Laurie Fine talked in disparaging terms about her husband, Bernie Fine, and as prompted by Bobby's conversations, discussed her beliefs and her suspicions that her husband had been involved in sexual episodes with young boys. It was clearly a damning tape in terms of her characterization of her husband but much of it was her thinking and beliefs. She never directly acknowledged to have witnessed any of these actions first-hand. So based on that tape which we had not generated; which we had no real knowledge of how it was made and Bobby Davis's story - which was one person with no corroboration - we felt in 2003 that the material we had did not meet the standards for reporting the story. That is consistent with how we have viewed these types of stories in the past."
Getting a little defensive there, ESPN? You may need to be, if any other boys were victimized by Fine after 2003 when you dropped the story, without giving that tape to either the University or the Syracuse police.

To be fair, the Syracuse Post-Standard is in the same situation as ESPN - they also heard the tape in 2003 and never let the University or local police know about it.

Also, the Syracuse University investigation of 2005 needs to be reviewed. Who talked to Bobby Davis, what was he asked, and why didn't the tape surface during that investigation?
 
Upvote 0
ESPN can go eat a bag of dicks for their reporting on this story. Why, if you have the audio recording, do you sit on it for 8 years? I supposed I could understand not reporting it to your viewers, but not reporting it to the police or to the university? In-fu-ck-ing-de-fens-ible.

And then they wait an additional 10 days after reporting the story on Nov. 17. What possible explanation for that?

What happened here is that ESPN got de-pantsed in the Sandusky story. Mark Schwarz remembered that he had this similar story back in 2003 and they planned to slowly drip the information out there to increase ratings (capitalizing on the popularity of the Sandusky story) and also making it appear as though they were engaging in serious investigative journalism.

Maybe ESPN should be cited for lack of institutional control.
 
Upvote 0
OH10;2055012; said:
ESPN can go eat a bag of dicks for their reporting on this story. Why, if you have the audio recording, do you sit on it for 8 years? I supposed I could understand not reporting it to your viewers, but not reporting it to the police or to the university? In-fu-ck-ing-de-fens-ible.

And then they wait an additional 10 days after reporting the story on Nov. 17. What possible explanation for that?

What happened here is that ESPN got de-pantsed in the Sandusky story. Mark Schwarz remembered that he had this similar story back in 2003 and they planned to slowly drip the information out there to increase ratings (capitalizing on the popularity of the Sandusky story) and also making it appear as though they were engaging in serious investigative journalism.

Maybe ESPN should be cited for lack of institutional control.

Today they had guests on Outside the Lines, questioning what Syracuse did in their 2005 investigation, which was apparently initiated after they received an anonymous email.

I was wondering myself why Syracuse didn't discover the tape in 2005. They are now having outside consultants review what they did in 2005, and until that review is done, they won't reveal what happened. But if all they had was an anonymous email, how would Syracuse know to ask Bobby Davis if he had any evidence? Boeheim said a couple of days ago that he's had about 1500 ball boys at Syracuse - that's a little over 1 per each game he's coached there. They would have needed to be confidential in that investigation, and they couldn't really start asking hundreds of ball boys if they'd ever been abused. Whether they interviewed Fine or Bobby Davis back in 2005 will be interesting to learn.

But while ESPN criticized Syracuse's investigation in 2005, they never even mentioned the existence of the tape which ESPN had received back in 2003. That sure seemed hypocritical to me.

If any kids were abused after 2003, or after 2005, folks at Syracuse, ESPN, and the local paper in Syracuse will be subject to the same moral (if not legal) questions that people at Penn State have faced.
 
Upvote 0
BuckeyeNation27;2055328; said:
I know there are a bunch of Cuse grads at the WWL. Any of them in a position to suppress this tape in 03?

Mike Tirico (a Syracuse alum) was doing the Syracuse-Florida hoops game last night. He was talking about how they needed to let the facts be determined, etc. What he and Bilas were saying was understandable and even reasonable, but in contrast to Tirico's commentary about tOSU during the 2004 Alamo Bowl, it was a frickin' joke.

He should listen to himself talking about the scandal last night, and then watch a tape of himself talking about tOSU back in December, 2004; and then decide whether he still considers himself a journalist with any objectivity.

There are a lot of Cuse grads in sports broadcasting - I don't know if any of them were in decision-making positions at ESPN back then. Perhaps the folks at Yahoo could have somebody take a look at that, or maybe Dan Patrick could comment about it.
 
Upvote 0
Accusers Bobby Fine and Mike Lang(his stepbrother) have hired Gloria Allred, a prominent attorney in high-profile cases, and are suing Syracuse and Boeheim for defamation.

Fox
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Back
Top