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A law enforcement officer talks with Bernie Fine, then the Syracuse University associate head basketball coach, as police prepare to execute a search warrant at Fine's home in DeWitt in this Nov. 25, 2011 file photo. Police were investigating allegations that Fine had sexually abused children.

(Gary Walts, The Post-Standard)

By staff writers John O'Brien and Emily Kulkus

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Bernie Fine won't be charged in the criminal investigation of child-molesting accusations against the former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach, federal prosecutors revealed today.

After nearly a year of police scouring more than 100,000 pages of seized documents and interviewing 130 witnesses, the investigation that attracted national media attention has ended, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Clymer filed court papers this morning saying it was over, eight days short of the one-year anniversary of the day that two former SU ball boys, Bobby Davis and stepbrother Mike Lang, accused Fine on national TV of molesting them decades ago when they were children.

Neither Fine nor anyone else will be charged, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan said.

“The nature and seriousness of these allegations, which involved conduct typically committed in private with individuals who are reluctant to come forward, warranted a thorough federal investigation,” U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian said.

Fine won’t face criminal charges, but the case cost him his job, turned him into a recluse, caused him to put his house up for sale, and exposed embarrassing details of his marriage.

SU fired Fine 10 days after the allegations became public Nov. 17, ending his 35 years beside head coach Jim Boeheim. Fine, 66, has denied all wrongdoing.

Prosecutors provided no details about the evidence, saying they’re prohibited from disclosing such information in a case in which no one is being charged.

They wouldn’t comment on whether they believed the accusers or found their stories to be fabrications. They also wouldn’t comment on whether there was any evidence that Fine molested anyone.

Prosecutors said they’re making a rare exception by publicly acknowledging that the investigation’s over. That’s because it became public knowledge when Secret Service agents and Syracuse police were seen executing a search warrant at the Fines’ home last November, Duncan said.

The end of the investigation prompted prosecutors to ask a federal judge today to unseal affidavits from a Secret Service agent that were filed last November to obtain warrants to search Fine’s home, office, and bank safe deposit boxes.

Those documents confirm what The Post-Standard reported last year — that investigators cited the allegations of Davis, Lang and two other men in requests for search warrants from U.S. Magistrate Andrew Baxter. The allegations from the four men were presented as evidence that investigators had enough reason to believe crimes may have been committed.

Davis claimed Fine abused him through the late 1980s, when Davis was a teenager. Lang claimed Fine molested him in the early 1980s, when Lang was a teenager. In 2002, Lang denied to The Post-Standard that Fine had ever molested him. But the child-molesting scandal at Penn State last year prompted Lang to come forward with his accusations against Fine.

The two other accusers, Zach Tomaselli and Floyd Van Hooser, have since admitted they lied when they made child-molesting claims against Fine.

No one answered the door this morning at Fine's home in DeWitt when a reporter visited seeking his comment.

Fines' daughter, Sheila Fine, called a reporter and said the family had heard the news. "Nobody has s--- to say to you. How stupid do you feel now?"

Fine's neighbor, SU head basketball coach Jim Boeheim, was walking his dog. He held up his hands and said, "No, no" when a reporter told him the news and asked him for a comment.

Davis answered the door at his Bridgeport home, but said he has pneumonia and was too sick to talk today.



Contact John O'Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.



Federal Agents Application for Search Warrant

U.S. Attorney's Office news release on Bernie Fine investigation

Related

»

Click here to see all The Post-Standard's coverage of the Bernie Fine investigation.

» SU assistant coach Bernie Fine accused of sexual abuse; university places him on leave

» Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim apologizes for statements about Fine accusers

» Secret Service, police search Bernie Fine's home

» SU coach Bernie Fine's wife told accuser her husband 'needs help' in taped phone call

» Syracuse chancellor fires longtime assistant coach Bernie Fine; 'We do not tolerate abuse,' she says

» A look inside Bernie Fine's home, a hangout for boys

» Judge dumps slander suit against Boeheim, Syracuse University

» A chronology of the Bernie Fine case

