No Federal Charges Against Syracuse Coach

Federal prosecutors say they will not bring charges against former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, who a year ago was accused of having sexually abused young boys.

According to The Post-Standard in Syracuse, "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."

The newspaper adds that:

"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."

Last December, the local prosecutor said he wouldn't bring charges against Fine because the statute of limitations had passed. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said, though, that he believed the abuse allegations made by two men who said they had been abused by Fine when they were boys in the 1980s.

Two other men who came forward with similar accusations, however, later said they had lied. Fine has always said he is innocent.

The accusations against Fine, who was fired shortly after they surfaced, came just days after the Penn State scandal broke. There, former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was charged and later convicted of having abused at least 10 young boys over more than 15 years. He's going to be in prison the rest of his life.

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