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	Former Christ the King Coach Bob Oliva Tries to Get Friend Sam Albano to Lie in Sexual Abuse Case By Michael O'Keeffe New York Daily News March 21, 2010 http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/high_school/2010/03/21/2010-03-21_oliva_tamper_trouble.html NEW YORK -- It was the summer of 1976, and Billy Martin's Yankees were in Boston to play a series against the Red Sox. Sam Albano and some friends had traveled from Queens to watch the Yankees take on the defending American League champs, and they were standing outside a bar near Fenway Park called the Cask'n Flagon when somebody spotted Bob Oliva. Everybody in Queens, Albano says, knew Oliva back in those days, even before he became the longtime boy's basketball coach at Christ the King Regional High School who won five city championships over 27 years before resigning in January 2009 amid sex abuse allegations. "He was a neighborhood legend," says Albano. "He always had everyone's respect. He was a very good coach who always had control of his players and the referees. He knew basketball strategy. He had a very fast car, a (Oldsmobile) 442. He was a very good softball player. He owned one of the first sports bars in New York. Those were the things that mattered in Queens during the '70s." Oliva's companion that weekend was a lanky, handsome teen named Jimmy Carlino. "It didn't make sense for this guy to have a 14-year-old with him," Albano says. "He said Jimmy was his godson." That chance meeting more than 30 years ago has become a key part of the evidence that Suffolk County (Mass.) prosecutors have presented to a grand jury examining allegations that Oliva molested Carlino that weekend while they stayed at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. Albano says he defended his former friend Oliva in the spring of 2008, when Carlino first accused the coach of sexually abusing him over the course of several years during the '70s. But his support evaporated in July 2008, when Oliva told Albano that Carlino had hired Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented scores of victims of sexual abuse by priests, and that Garabedian was trying to convince Suffolk County prosecutors to investigate Carlino's claims. "He says, 'Will you say that you were in the hotel with us?' I said, 'You gotta be (expletive) kidding me. You say you are innocent and now you want me to lie for you?' That's when it was all over between us." Albano says he told the grand jury last month about the conversation - and that he stayed at a different hotel. Several other former Oliva associates, including Carlino and two other men who say they were abused by the coach, also appeared before the grand jury in February. Sources close to the case who have requested anonymity say they expect an indictment will be handed down this spring - perhaps by late this month. Oliva has vehemently denied the allegations, and his attorney Michael Doolin said the coach has never asked anybody to lie in this case. Bernard Helldorfer, the legal counsel for the Christ the King board of trustees, said Albano did not bring his allegations to school officials and declined further comment. "It is generally comforting for a complaining witness to know that facts are being presented by other sources," Garabedian said. Albano, a sports TV producer, says he first met Oliva when they were CYO basketball coaches at rival Queens parishes. They had become good friends in the years that followed that accidental 1976 meeting near Fenway Park. Albano occasionally hung out at the Short Porch, the Queens sports bar Oliva co-owned, and years later Albano's son became a manager for the CK basketball team. "I always wondered, why is this guy always hanging around with this kid," Albano says. When Carlino's allegations first became public, Albano says Oliva told him that his accuser had fallen on hard times and brought up the sex abuse to pressure the coach to give him cash. "He told me Jimmy was a bum, he's living in the street and he has no teeth," Albano says. "I wanted to call him because I thought I could mediate this thing, but Oliva kept saying, 'Don't call Jimmy, don't get involved.' "I finally called Jimmy and I asked, 'How are your teeth?' He said, 'Fine, why do you ask that?' That's when my heart sank. That's when my support started to dwindle."
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