Bernie Fine Accusations: Zach Tomaselli Admits To Lying, Doctoring Emails

Update: Zach Tomaselli just told the P-S that he will ask Syracuse Police to end its child molestation investigation of Bernie Fine.

"I'm just guna ask the police to drop the investigation on Fine. I'm sick of this. I have a couple weeks left to live. I want to be left alone."

He will also drop the civil suit he filed against Fine.

Wow...

Also, here is Syracuse.com video of Tomaselli explaining himself.

"I've lost a lot of support and I'm trying really hard to gain back support, to the point of lying...I wanted to take the easy road to not be patient and wait for people to see that I'm not lying. Because I feel like, by the time that the police and the...Secret Service that come out with all the information that show I'm not lying and Bernie Fine's arrested, who knows where I'll be?"

Original: Zach Tomaselli admitted to the Post-Standard today that he changed emails and "frequently lied" in anttempt to prove that former Syracuse Orange coach Bernie Fine molested him.

Tomaselli admitted he changed emails to try to convince the newspaper that the school superintendent doubted the reliability of attendance records that show Tomaselli was in school in Copenhagen, N.Y., on the day Tomaselli says he was in Pittsburgh with Fine.

He also admitted he doctored an email from Syracuse police to persuade reporters that police believed Tomaselli.

Tomaselli does still claim that Fine molested him in a hotel room in Connecticut, no I mean Pittsburgh, where Tomaselli traveled with the team, no, wait, I mean he took a bus full of "SU athletic department support staff" to meet them. That was it.

The Daily Orange has copies of the emails that Tomaselli doctored. Pushing all of this to 11, Tomaselli misspelled the first name of the cop he was pretending to be in one of the emails. Not to mention the fact that the emails are ridiculous. "So, Zach, we know your father is a liar and we believe he molested you and I would personally say he is a sick man."

Tomaselli is still suing Fine in a civil suit in Pittsburgh but I can't imagine this bodes well for his case. He's also set to go to jail himself for molesting a child.

What are we gonna do with all his headshots now?

As for the fact that Tomaselli's admissions were the basis for that initial search of Bernie Fine's house, well, I guess it doesn't matter. There's no way any case be made in court against Fine now, as Tomaselli's was the only within the statute of limitations and he's about now as unreliable a witness as they come.

By the way, let's remember how Tomaselli initially came into our lives, shall we?

"I emailed [Cowherd] and he forwarded the email to Mark Schwarz," Tomaselli said. Schwarz is an enterprise reporter for ESPN. "After talking to Schwarz on the phone, I got a phone call from a private number."

The call was from Davis.

Another grape job for you, Mark Schwarz. You really nailed this one.

And so, here we are. Four accusers. Two of them have now admitted to either making the whole thing up or making some of it up. It's not fair to look at Tomaselli and VanHooser and assume the same is true of Davis & Lang, but, this certainly crushes public perception of the allegations. If Davis and Lang were holding on to some kind of damning piece of evidence, now's the time.

Not to mention that this is now turning into a worst-case scenario for defenders of child abuse victims and victims rights advocates. The alleged crimes perpetrated by Bernie Fine are horrendous. The crime of pretending to be a victim of those crimes isn't just as bad, but it's pretty terrible and could have long-last effects (see: Duke lacrosse rape case).

Still, that Jason Whitlock article is looking stronger and stronger, isn't it?

And of course, credit where credit is due, Fitzpatrick. You called it again.