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| Bernie Fine |
For those of you following the allegations made against now former Syracuse Assistant Basketball Coach Bernie Fine, one thing is clear: Nobody is sure what the truth is yet.
On the heels of Sunday's release of an Audio tape with accuser Bobby Davis and Fine's wife comes a flurry of accusations.
One was made today (Tuesday). Frank Fowler, the Chief of Police in Syracuse released a statement saying that his department was made aware of Mr. Davis's allegations in 2002. Fowler also said that a detective spoke to Mr. Davis's then girlfriend about them and decided not to pursue a case. Fowler went on to say that former Chief Dennis DuVal was made aware of the allegations and that a decision was made not to proceed in part due to the "Statue of Limitations" running out on the case.
An aside: How the heck can there be an 8-year "Statue of Limitations" on reports such as this in New York? That may very well be one of the nations most absurd laws. It would render almost every case levied against the Catholic Church irrelevant.
Sorry about the rant there.
Read a full description of today's revelations from Syracuse.com RIGHT HERE
The other issue that is bubbling to the surface: ESPN. Yes, that's right. The 4-letter network themselves, who played excerpts from the Davis/Laurie Fine phone conversation Sunday on their Sports/News shows.
The outrage seems to be focused on ESPN not telling anyone they had the tape back in 2003, when Davis 1st brought his allegations to them. And yes, investigators are not happy about this.
ESPN has been quick to trot out its reporter, Mark Schwarz, who did the story that started this two weeks ago. Schwarz made the media rounds yesterday and was asked by CNN why the tape wasn't given to authorities.
His answer wasn't a good one, telling CNN, "Journalists aren't necessarily required or expected to hand over evidence that they did not obtain or create themselves to police." And while legally, Schwarz is probably correct, the morality is where the issues come in.
Schwarz's boss, Vince Doria went further saying they didn't use the tape when they got it, because they couldn't verify if it was indeed Laurie Fine that Davis was speaking to. Doria said ESPN was later able to confirm this, but didn't specify when.
And while the Internets proclaim ESPN is staging this story for their benefit, we find that very hard to believe. Yes, you can argue that they were trying to compensate for getting blown off the News map covering the Jerry Sandusky story at Penn State, it is taking a big leap by accusing them of hyping the Bernie Fine story to make up for losing.
And oh, lest we forget, there is an increasing clamor that Jim Boeheim, the head coach at Syracuse, who initially came out in vehement support of Fine, be fired. Boeheim, who has been at the school pretty much since the dawn of time has apologized for what he said, but the question now is; "What did he know?" Many say since he was the man in charge, he should have known about the allegations and investigations, especially since they started nearly 10-years-ago.
As you know, Fine has already lost his job at Syracuse and the investigation has now been taken over by the Feds. It should be. Nobody is sure exactly where things go from here, only that it's gotten really messy and somebody when it is all said and done, has got a lot of 'Splainin'...to do.
In the meantime, listen...and watch this mashup of what ESPN is saying and/or doing about this story on YouTube from user shakeyoureptile:
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