Imprisoned Bernie Fine Accuser Floyd Vanhooser Says He Made up Sex Abuse Claims...

By Michael O'Keeffe
New York Daily News
January 15, 2012

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/imprisoned-bernie-fine-accuser-floyd-vanhooser-made-sex-abuse-claims-ex-syracuse-assistant-article-1.1006435

Former Syracuse assistant coach Bernie Fine is fired by the school in November amid the sex-abuse allegations levied against him. Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty

The upstate prison inmate who accused Bernie Fine of sexual abuse said he lied to get back at the former Syracuse assistant basketball coach because Fine did not hire a lawyer for him when he was convicted on burglary charges last year.

Floyd (David) VanHooser, a career criminal and drug abuser who was sentenced in October to 16 years to life as a repeat offender, told the Syracuse Post-Standard on Friday that he lied about the abuse because he was angry at Fine, who took in VanHooser when he was orphaned as a teenager.

"Some of it is true and some of it isn't," VanHooser told the newspaper when asked if the allegations he made to investigators were true. "You're going to tell everyone how sorry I am?"

VanHooser, 56, told Syracuse police detectives in late November that Fine began molesting him when he was 14 or 15 and that the sexual contact continued for four decades. The Daily News reported then that Robert Hoatson, founder of an organization that counsels sex-abuse victims called Road to Recovery, had talked to the family of a fourth victim who said Fine had abused him; VanHoover was that alleged victim. VanHooser told the Post-Standard and the Associated Press in interviews last month that Fine had abused him.

The most recent incident, VanHooser told the Post-Standard last month, took place last year when VanHooser performed oral sex on Fine in the coach's university office.

The Post-Standard reported on Sunday that last week it had received copies of two letters dated Nov. 29 that VanHooser wrote and sent to Fine that said he lied.

"In a statement I gave I told a lot of lies about Bernie Fine. None of what I said was true," VanHooser wrote in one of the letters.

"Bernie has been nothing but good to me over the years. He was the only thing I had close to a father. He never did any thing wrong. He is a good man."

Hoatson and VanHooser's ex-girlfriend, Cindy Clarke, said VanHooser told them about the letters when they met with him at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora on Dec. 12.

Hoatson said VanHooser told him he wrote the letters because he was overwhelmed by guilt for accusing the man who took him in when he was 13, after his mother died, of sexual abuse. VanHooser's father died when he was 9.

"He is carrying a lot of shame and guilt," Clarke told the Daily News on Sunday. "Bernie Fine was the closest thing he had to a father."

Clarke said VanHooser first told her that Fine had abused him in 2002.

Hoatson said VanHooser appears to be emotionally and financially dependent on Fine. Fine frequently gave VanHooser cash and bought a television for VanHooser's cell after he was sentenced last year.

Onondaga District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said at a press conference last month that he could not prosecute Fine for allegedly abusing former Syracuse ball boys Bobby Davis and Mike Lang because of statute of limitation issues. The U.S. Attorney's office is leading the investigation into sexual abuse claims made by a third victim, Zach Tomaselli.

Fitzpatrick said he did not find allegations made by a fourth accuser — later identified as VanHooser — credible.