Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Fourth accuser in Bernie Fine case admits ‘he told a lot of lies’

spt-111117-bernie-fine

Mike Miller

The sexual molestation investigation against former Syracuse assistant Bernie Fine was already a muddled mess, but Sunday added another level to it.

The fourth accuser in the case, Floyd “David” VanHooser, now says he lied to police and subsequent interviews with the Syracuse Post-Standard and the Associated Press. VanHooser’s motivation was to retaliate against Fine because Fine, 66, did not hire a lawyer to help VanHooser fight a conviction.

VanHooser, 56, is currently serving a sentence at Clinton state prison for burglaries in the Syracuse area.

He had claimed that Fine began molesting him when he was 14 or 15, and that it continued until last summer.

“In a statement I gave, I told a lot of lies about Bernie Fine. None of what I said was true,” VanHooser wrote in copies of letters addressed to the paper. “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 anything wrong. He is a good man.”

Read more about the Bernie Fine case

VanHooser also told the paper that his statement to police was only partially true.

“Some of it is and some of it isn’t,” he told the paper. “You’re going to tell everyone how sorry I am?”

VanHooser says he never saw Fine abuse children.

No charges have been filed against Fine.

Related stories:

You also can follow me on Twitter @MikeMillerNBC.