SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A judge on Friday threw out a defamation lawsuit brought against Syracuse University and men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim by two men who said the Hall of Fame coach slandered them when he said their accusations of
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A judge on Friday threw out a defamation lawsuit brought against Syracuse University and men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim by two men who said the Hall of Fame coach slandered them when he said their accusations of sexual abuse against former associate head coach Bernie Fine were driven by greed.
Two former team ball boys, Bobby Davis and Michael Lang, accused Fine of sexually abusing them more than 20 years ago.
When the allegations surfaced in November, Boeheim vehemently supported Fine, a friend for more than 40 years and his assistant for 35-plus seasons. Boeheim told ESPN that Davis was telling “a bunch of a thousand lies” and called him an opportunist looking to cash in on the publicity surrounding the Penn State sex-abuse scandal.
Supreme Court Justice Brian DeJoseph, a graduate of Syracuse University and its law school, ruled Friday that Boeheim’s comments were not statements of fact but were opinions that are protected from defamation suits.
“The content, tone and purpose of Boeheim’s statements would clearly signal to the reasonable reader that what was being said in the articles published in the days after the initial ESPN report were likely to be an opinion — a biased, passionate and defensive point of view of a basketball coach — rather than objective fact,” DeJoseph wrote in his 30-page decision. “It is clear to this court that Boeheim provided a factual basis for his opinion. He provided a … reasonably accurate version of those facts.”
