Laurie Fine: “Bernie is behind me 100% in this lawsuit.” ESPN: “We stand by our reporting.”
The lawsuit against ESPN is something of little surprise given the way they have reported this story since it began back in November. In wake of the Penn State scandal last fall, a story that they were late to report, they found Bobby Davis and Mike Lang coming to them with similar allegations. It has been documented as recent as this month that ESPN will not acknowledge others that break news before them on their programs. This stubbornness led to a rush to judgment to air the Bernie Fine story, the very same story they refused to publish ten years ago because of a lack of evidence and because no one could corroborate Bobby Davis’ story. Enter step brother Mike Lang’s accusation with no other evidence on top of it, and ESPN felt justified in airing the story. It should be noted that Mike Lang is on a recorded audio tape in a 2002 interview where he admits that Bernie never did “nothin’ but good things” for him. Were they being responsible, or were they trying to get a lot of ratings following how hot the Penn State scandal went?
We had a third and fourth accuser come forward. The fourth accuser quickly recanted, but the third accuser, Zack Tomaselli, brought up even more questions of irresponsibility in the story. When Tomaselli came forward with the allegations, it was the lead story on SportsCenter and was a prominent features on the “bottom line”. A warrant was executed to search Bernie and Laurie Fine’s home based off of Tomaselli’s testimony where he described the inside of Bernie Fine’s home.
"Tomaselli alleged in his statement that Fine invited him to a party at Fine’s DeWitt home in 2003 following another SU game, and it describes in detail the inside of Fine’s house at 7001 Tiffany Circle."
Tomaselli later admitted he lied and made everything up, stating that it was “like a game” to him, and that he had never even met Bernie. This story made SportsCenter, but as a 15 second shot of the anchorman reading from a piece of paper. No “bottom line” feature. If Tomaselli had never met Bernie before, how could he describe the inside of Bernie’s home? Many people say Bobby Davis prepped him, allegations that he has denied. Before Tomaselli went on the air and to the police with his allegations, he was put in to contact with Bobby Davis where the two had a phone conversation, and this leads to the most irresponsible journalist of them all in this whole fiasco.
Lead “journalist” of the story on ESPN’s Outside the Lines Mark Schwarz put Bobby Davis in contact with Zach Tomaselli, rather than the police. Schwarz claims he wanted Davis to see how credible Tomaselli was, and Davis has said in interviews that he did not believe a word the kid said.
"“It was very short,” Davis said of their conversations. “I asked him all the questions. I asked him to describe Bernie’s house, to describe the arena, to name the players on the team at that time. He kept changing his story with me. He couldn’t name the players, couldn’t describe the house."
So Bobby Davis thought the kid was lying the entire time, yet the story still aired without any sort of disclaimer saying that Tomaselli was not credible, or even more responsibly, not in the story at all.
Bernie Fine was fired the same day from Syracuse University the same day Tomaselli came out with his accusations in the Syracuse Post-Standard and ESPN. He now has a job working for an Israeli basketball team, a story which made ESPN.com and nothing else, and had a video of Zach Tomaselli again alleging abuse attached to it, something completely unrelated to the story of Fine getting a new job. It was a story that was aired on SportsCenter that had nothing to do with Bernie Fine getting a new job. The news of Laurie Fine’s lawsuit has been out since early this morning, yet naturally there is no mention of it on ESPN. If anything, this lawsuit can at least keep this entire circus out of ESPN for at least the duration of the lawsuit.
Mark Schwarz enabling even the speculation that Bobby Davis could have provided information to Zach Tomaselli is about as bad and irresponsible as it gets, and ESPN agrees with me whether they admit it or not. Schwarz went from doing stories for Outside the Lines, to covering Albert Pujols’ lack of hitting followed by GolfGate in Boston. While I do not know if Bernie Fine molested Mike Lang or Bobby Davis, I do know that Mark Schwarz was way over his head as a journalist on this story. To say it bluntly, he butchered this story from every angle. Not only did he get a man who could be innocent fired from his job, but he also ensured that a man who could have been a victim will never be looked at in the same light by the public.
Bobby Davis and Mike Lang attempted to sue Jim Boeheim, but Schwarz should be the target of these two as well if they are truly victims of molestation. It is because of Schwarz’s stupidity, lack of judgment, and overall lack of integrity that he not only put connected Davis to Tomaselli in the eyes of his viewers, but also reporting on it after determining that Tomaselli had absolutely zero credibility. If Davis and Lang are truly victims, they will be looked at as bitter individuals that were cut off from Bernie financially, and decided to get revenge. Lang has even asked for his sons to be ball boys for the Syracuse basketball team as recently as 2010, according to the Laurie Fine Lawsuit released today. Lang went to Fine’s birthday party in 2006, and has since used Fine’s personal basketball tickets to take his sons to games. Their accusations will never be viewed in a fully truthful light in the eyes of many people, simply because they are connected to Tomaselli who is a pathological liar, a convicted child molester, and a self admitted drug addict. And for what? Because it is a juicy story that the Secret Service and FBI executed search warrants at Bernie Fine’s home as a result of Tomaselli’s testimony? (It is still unknown where Tomaselli got his information from, and as far as I can tell he has only been in contact with one person who had actually been in Bernie Fine’s house before- Davis). Because it gets a lot of hits on ESPN.com when reporting about this story during a season where Syracuse was one of the top ranked teams in college basketball?
ESPN has released a statement regarding the lawsuit:
"We have not had an opportunity to review the complaint. We stand by our reporting."