At this point, everyone is very well aware of the ongoing situation at Penn State University involving child molestation allegations surrounding former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Everyone is also very well aware of former Nittany Lions head coach Joe Paterno being fired by the University for his lack of action in terms of sharing his knowledge of the Sandusky situation with the proper authorities.
In the wake of the happenings at Penn State, allegations began to surface at Syracuse.
These allegations suggested that longtime Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine molested young ball boys of the Orange for many years as three different accusers have now come forward.
Fine’s secret lifestyle may not have been so secret as his wife, Laurie Fine had her own suspicions of her husbands attraction to young boys. In fact ESPN had a recorded telephone conversation that took place in 2002 in which Laurie Fine was discussing the allegations with Bobby Davis, a former SU ball boy who accuses Bernie Fine of molesting him when he was a child.
If you haven’t heard the tape or read the transcript, you can do that here.
Davis’ taped phone conversation was provided to the Syracuse Post-Standard and ESPN in 2003 by Bobby Davis himself.
On November 17th of this year, ESPN’s Mark Schwarz and Arty Berko spoke on the issue of ESPN being made aware of the allegations back in 2003…
“Outside the Lines” investigated Davis’ story in 2003, but decided not to run the story because there were no other victims who would talk, and no independent evidence to corroborate his story. In recent days, a second man, Lang, contacted “Outside the Lines” with information alleging that Fine had also molested him. Lang said he was inspired to talk after seeing news coverage of the Sandusky case.
Now it certainly seems reasonable that ESPN would not go public with their findings based on the previous statement of having no evidence to corroborate Davis’ story.
But is this truly the case?
First, ESPN clearly had more than what they were leading on since a third accuser had come forward which in turn led to Syracuse firing Bernie Fine.
Second, ESPN did have the corroborating evidence from Laurie Fine’s statements. And these weren’t statements that were muddy or gray, they were clear-cut statements of direct knowledge of the situation in hand.
So can ESPN be seen as the Joe Paterno of the Syracuse child molestation scandal?
It’s my assumption that Joe Paterno kept his mouth shut to protect Penn State University.
Was ESPN doing the same thing since at the time Syracuse was the 2003 NCAA National Champions and had provided the World Wide Leader with several graduates?
Intriguing the say the least and it may be something that the higher up’s at ESPN may have to answer to here in the near future.
But the news concerning Bernie Fines wife doesn’t stop there.
Deadspin.com points out the apparent sexual relationship that Bobby David had with Bernie Fines wife Laurie.
Davis however may not have been the only one to have those relations with Laurie Fine.
Deadspin cites other media sources saying that Laurie, now 53, had sex with players on many of Jim Boeheim’s squads.
These new allegations surrounding Laurie Fine stretch all the way back to the early 1980’s and could include a sex tape to prove it all.
Again, potentially more tip of the iceberg type stuff.
Ref: TheBigLead.com, ESPN, Deadspin.com, The Post-Standard, ibtimes.com (image)
