On Nov. 5, one of the biggest scandals in the history of college sports began to unfold. Former Pennsylvania State University defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested for a slew of sexual abuse charges. Legendary football coach Joe Paterno and President Graham Spanier were fired for their lack of action upon supposedly learning of the abuse in 2002.

And about two weeks later, when Penn State seemed to have begun the long road back to prominence, news broke at Syracuse University that brought the allegations hovering over State College back to the forefront of college sports.

On Nov. 17, Syracuse police began investigating an allegation that Bernie Fine, former associate coach of the men’s basketball team, molested a team ball boy for more than a dozen years. Fine, who was placed on administrative leave by the university on Nov. 17 and fired Sunday night, is accused of molesting Bobby Davis, now 39, starting in 1984 when Davis was in seventh grade. Davis told ESPN’s ‘Outside the Lines’ that the abuse happened at Fine’s home, the Syracuse basketball facilities and on road trips.

Mike Lang, Davis’ stepbrother and a former ball boy, corroborated Davis’ story and accused Fine of molesting him as well.

With the sexual abuse cases at Penn State and Syracuse both involving prominent assistant coaches and legendary head coaches, it’s hard not to compare. The cases have differences in how they’ve been handled, what may happen to the alleged abuser and what is likely to happen to the universities.

A little more than a week after the initial allegations broke at SU, a third accuser told police Wednesday that Fine sexually abused him in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room when he was 13. Zach Tomaselli, of Lewiston, Maine, is now 23 and facing sexual assault charges of his own involving a 14-year-old boy in Maine.

Fine has not been charged. Sandusky has.

After a grand jury investigation, Sandusky was indicted on 40 counts of child molestation dating from 1994 to 2004, although the abuse may go as far back as the 1970s. Sandusky allegedly had inappropriate contact with at least eight young boys — sometimes in university facilities.

Penn State wide receivers coach Mike McQueary, who has since been placed on administrative leave, testified in the grand jury investigation. The report says administrators didn’t contact authorities after McQueary, then a graduate assistant, said he saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a young boy in the football facility shower in 2002. Authorities say Sandusky met many of his alleged victims through The Second Mile, a charity he founded for at-risk children.

‘Right off the bat, the only question is not whether somebody is an alleged molester,’ said Jeffrey Lindy of the Philadelphia-based law firm Lindy and Tauber. ‘The question is whether there was an accusation that was ignored or improperly handled or, more sinister, swept under the rug and thereafter the guy kept molesting.’

With the case in Syracuse, Lindy said, the allegations against Fine date back to the 1980s. But there is no allegation that because the Syracuse Police Department and the university didn’t act when Davis first reported the alleged abuse, Fine continued to molest while he was employed by the university.

Davis spoke to Syracuse police over the phone about the allegations in mid-2002 but was told the statute of limitations expired. SU launched an investigation in 2005 after an adult male reported inappropriate conduct by an associate men’s basketball coach to SPD. The investigation lasted nearly four months and ‘all of those identified by the complainant denied any knowledge of wrongful conduct by the associate coach,’ said Kevin Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs, in a Nov. 17 statement.

Unlike Syracuse, Penn State never officially conducted an investigation into Sandusky. Sandusky retired in 1999 and still had full access to the Penn State football facilities until a few weeks ago.

‘Again, very different from Penn State, is Sandusky was not only abusing after Penn State officials knew the allegations, he was doing it on campus — in the Penn State locker room where he had an office because he was an emeritus professor,’ said Lindy, who has prosecuted and defended sex abuse cases. ‘I mean Penn State is going to get tagged. They are going to get tagged in the civil suit.’

But Lindy said he doesn’t expect there to be any liability for SU because there’s no allegation that Fine abused after administrative officials conducted their investigation in 2005.

‘So the question that I think Syracuse University would say, ‘Well, we had no suggestion other than that first allegation from long ago that he was doing anything on our campus,” Lindy said.

Unlike Penn State, no university or athletic officials at SU have come forward saying they saw or were told of the abuse and failed to report it. At Penn State, McQueary told Paterno of the abuse, and Paterno reported it to the athletic director instead of the police.

One similarity in the two cases is both Fine and Sandusky have maintained their innocence, although Sandusky has spoken out publicly in a phone interview with NBC’s Bob Costas.

‘I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their leg without intent of sexual content,’ Sandusky said in the Nov. 14 interview. The former Penn State assistant coach also admitted to ‘horsing around’ in the showers with a young boy the night McQueary described in the grand jury investigation.

Meanwhile, Fine released a statement through his lawyer on Nov. 18 calling the allegations against him ‘patently false.’

The biggest differences in the two cases, Lindy said, are that there is no charge against Fine in Syracuse and there is no allegation Fine abused on Syracuse property after the allegation became known to the university in 2005, while Sandusky committed abuse on campus after Penn State officials knew of the allegation.

But some similarities remain.

‘That’s the thing everybody is struggling with — that sports are bigger than anything,’ Lindy said. ‘And if a big sports figure gets accused of something, you start sweeping under the rug. That’s the similarity.’

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Published on November 27, 2011 at 12:00 pm

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