UPDATED: July 5, 2012, 4:41 P.M. EST

A special committee of Syracuse University’s Board of Trustees concluded SU should have directly contacted law enforcement agencies upon receiving an initial child molestation complaint against Bernie Fine in 2005, according to a report released Thursday.

SU’s response to the allegations of former men’s basketball team ball boy Bobby Davis was “prompt, appropriate, and undertaken in good faith without any attempt to conceal the alleged conduct,” according to the 52-page report prepared by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

But looking back, the university’s response was imperfect, according to the report. After investigating the allegations in 2005, SU’s legal counsel, Bond, Schoeneck & King, should have also made Chancellor Nancy Cantor aware of the allegations about the possibility of student athletes having had sexual encounters with the former associate coach’s wife, Laurie Fine, according to the report.

Additionally, the Board of Trustees should have been informed of Davis’ allegations, according to the report. Kevin Quinn, SU senior vice president for public affairs, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Deryck Palmer, the chair of the special committee, stated in a press release Thursday that there was no “coverup”regarding to Davis’s claims, and that the University investigated those claims in a professional manner in 2005.

But he said the investigative process was “less than it could and should have been, given the nature of the matter.”

“We have discussed the pluses and minuses in the process at some length in the report, with the belief that we should provide a full accounting of the strengths and weaknesses of the University’s response, and learn whatever lessons can be learned from our review of the matter,” he said in the release.

The law firm only interviewed Davis once in person for approximately two hours during the initial investigation into the alleged repeated abuse by Fine, which was not sufficient enough to examine his claims, according to the report.

Peter Jones, a junior partner at BSK at the time, interviewed Davis in September 2005 at the university, while CurleneAutrey, SU director of diversity and resolution processes, took notes and asked any clarifying questions, according to the report.

Both Jones and Autrey remember asking about the existence of corroborating evidence, but there is no indication that Davis told them about a tape recording of a phone conversation about Fine he had with Laurie Fine in 2002, according to the report.

Davis also did not mention the tape in his written statement, but according to the report, if Davis had mentioned the tape to Jones or Autrey, “the progress and outcome of the inquiry might have been dramatically different” because it would have provided some “substantiation” to his claims.

The special committee did not conclude that a better process could have led to an alternative outcome, and does not reach a conclusion regarding whether or not Davis’ allegations were true.

Davis’ attorney, Gloria Allred, said in an email to The Daily Orange that she had no comment at this time.

“We will be reviewing it and discussing it in detail with our client,” she said. “On Monday, we will issue our response.”

Fine, who was fired by the university on Nov. 27, has denied all wrongdoing and has not been charged.

Published on July 4, 2012 at 12:00 am

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