By Michael McAllister
On Friday December 2nd, Bernie Fine's third accuser Zach Tomaselli spoke with Nation of Orange for nearly an hour and a half. He described, in detail, his childhood, being abused by his father, being abused by Bernie Fine, and the ensuing media roller coaster. He also spoke about his reasons for coming forward, responded to public criticism, and shared his goals from this controversial situation. Here is what he said. Before reading, it's important to note that the following contains very graphic and adult content.
Nation of Orange: I know you made allegations about your father that he sexually abused you when you were younger. Do you want to explain that?
Zach Tomaselli: My father started abusing me right before I met Bernie Fine. It would’ve been four months before I met Bernie Fine in the summer of 2001 when I was 12 or 13 years old. He always was very hard on us kids and spanked us on our bare bottoms through 14 years old, and would find little odd reasons to do that even if we didn’t really do anything wrong. He would basically, also, it really kind of started out, um, just basically if I was sick or something my father would use the excuse that I didn’t know how to shower. So he would take me into the shower to show me how to wash properly. And that would include him standing behind me and basically fondling me in the shower and putting his genitals against my back. Basically, that’s when it all kind of started. That was one of his number one things he would do. But also, make me leave the door unlocked so I had no privacy in the bathroom. He would use the same excuse that Bernie would use whenever he made me leave the door open saying if I slipped and got hurt he needed to be able to get to me.
Nation of Orange: How long did that go on, the abuse by your father?
Tomaselli: Through 19 years old.
Nation of Orange: About 5-6 years or so?
Tomaselli: Yeah
Nation of Orange: You were, what 23, because it was this year you finally reported that to authorities?
Tomaselli: Correct
Nation of Orange: It was about four years or so after the abuse stopped that you reported it?
Tomaselli: I waited on purpose to report my father for anything because I know my mom and my siblings rely on him financially. There’s a five year statute in New York as I’m sure you’re aware. So I wanted to wait until my 23rd birthday to report it, and I did report it a few days after my 23rd birthday. Because at the same time, I wanted the police as well as social services or child services whatever you guys call them, to check up on my little brother to make sure he was OK.
Nation of Orange: The ultimate result of that investigation was there were no charges filed. Like you said, the statute of limitations were up.
Tomaselli: Right. And I know he’s definitely harping on that to make sure people know that. But that is the reason why there were no charges filed, because there couldn’t have been.
Nation of Orange: You had said on your Facebook page that they did find evidence that he did abuse you. I was curious what type of evidence they found, and were they able to find out if he was not abusing your siblings, that they were OK?
Tomaselli: From what I understand from my older sister, who’s not really talking to the media and I don’t blame her because she does have the slightest relationship with my family still. She was kicked out for having premarital sex, but she’s still allowed to visit them for Thanksgiving, but that’s about it and to have contact with my other siblings. She doesn’t want to mess up her contact with my other siblings, so basically, they still have contact through that. She told me, my oldest sister, social services when they talked to my little brother that something had been going wrong. Through social services there was evidence that my father was abusing at least my little brother to some extent. That’s the evidence I’m talking about. Also, so all that is closed, but the social services case is still open.
Nation of Orange: So you believe they are keeping tabs on that to make sure you’re little brother is OK?
Tomaselli: Right. I would be surprised if they weren’t seeing as how something was indicated there.
Nation of Orange: At the current time, your younger brother is still living with your father?
Tomaselli: Yes.
Nation of Orange: You also stated that you and your father are no longer talking. Could you explain the circumstances that led to that?
Tomaselli: That happened in 2007. I was having, in the summer of 2007, my Dad was in Iraq, and I was basically taking care of everything and helping out around the house. My dad was the one who kept tabs on me and was very strict. Obviously since he was abusing me, he made sure there was no one else in my life. I had a friend of mine who was two years younger than me who was my friend from the church I went to. His name was Isaiah Jones. Me and him were best friends for four years. He was a huge Syracuse fan, and I was a huge Kansas Jayhawks fan. So we had a lot of, you know, rivalries with sports, and that’s how we really started to get along. He would spend the night often at my house. At one point we were sleeping downstairs, and he texted me randomly in the middle of the night to do something sexual. And I didn’t understand what he was asking. Even at 18 or 19 years old, I still had little knowledge of anything, how sex even worked because my parents kept me out of school. My parents wouldn’t sign me permissions slips for sex ed. I wasn’t allowed to watch anything sexual on TV. I didn’t understand anything. So that’s why I didn’t understand what my Dad was doing to me was wrong. The only other time I had even masturbated was during when Bernie had me do that. Anyways, so I had a sexual affair with this Isaiah guy through the summer of 2007. We did things multiple times. By December 2007, my Dad had been back from Iraq for a few months really monitoring everything. The only thing he never really monitored was my cell phone. And that’s because I bought it myself and was on my own plan. They did have some respect for that, but basically my cell phone broke in December. Isaiah started e-mailing me. My dad intercepted an e-mail, asking to do, the e-mail said, “If you’re horny then do you want to do that thing.” My dad intercepted it and he went to Isaiah’s father. Isaiah called me without my parents knowing and said, “hey say that thing was porn.” So I was going to do that to try to get out of this. I knew my parents absolutely would be very very upset. So they called me up to their room. They didn’t know I knew already obviously. I played dumb, and they brought it up, and I said, “oh that’s me getting him porn.” And then my Dad kind of tricked me and said, “should we tell him what Isaiah’s saying?” At that point I broke down and began to cry and said I liked guys and I didn’t know why. And my Dad explained to me that it was a perversion, and that also I was a pedophile. He also told me that, he compared it to perverted people that have sex with animals. That’s what was indicated in the Bible. My Dad believed the Bible to its word, including that a wife should be stoned if she cheats on her husband. So I truly believe if my mom ever cheated on him, he would feel he’d have the right to at least stone her. So my Dad gave me the option to going to live with my Grandmother, which he said would be a bad option because he said she would be very very disappointed. Which I had little knowledge at the time and didn’t understand that my Grandmother didn’t feel that way and was accepting of homosexuality. Or I could go get healed. I could go to a place in Memphis, Tennessee called “Love in Action” where they to turn gays straight. This place has been on 60 Minutes, because a child had gone there a long time ago, Zach Stark. And that kid was a minor, and these people from Tennessee went it and deemed it to be psychological abuse of going through it to be child abuse. So minors were not allowed to go there. I went there and it was definite psychological abuse. They put you in a room and don’t let you talk to anybody until you start admitting that you’re a sinner and you’re this evil person and you need to come back to Jesus. I couldn’t handle it, I broke down crying one day and told them I’d rather kill myself then be in their program. So they put me in a psych unit. The psychologist said, “Zach there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just around a lot of homophobes.” So I called my parents and told them I had nowhere to go. And they said, “well you need to get back in the program.” I called the program and they said, “you can’t come here.” I called my parents and told them that, and they said, “well you need to stay on the streets of Memphis, Tennessee until they let you back in.” At that point I had nothing. I didn’t have money, I didn’t have anything. So I was about to go on the streets of Tennessee, and I called my Grandmother. I looked her number up through 411 or whatever. She found out and ended up giving me a plane ticket to fly back here. My parents stopped talking to her at that point and said she was an enabler. She basically got shunned at that point. Since then my Grandmother and I have had little communication with my parents and have been estranged. Any communication has been fighting. In recent years, there has been none.
Nation of Orange: Was that your Mom’s Mom or your Dad’s Mom?
Tomaselli: My Mom’s mom. My Dad’s parents are very religious too, and they actually own a place in Vermont called, “The Fold” where they try to help kids with anger issues and stuff like that.
Nation of Orange: From there onto your allegations with Bernie Fine. We can start from the beginning. How you met Bernie Fine and how your trip to Pittsburgh was arranged?
Tomaselli: I met Bernie at an autograph session at Syracuse University. I’m not exactly sure where it took place on the University. I don’t really remember any buildings around it. I don’t remember the Carrier Dome, so it wasn’t in the Dome I can tell you that much.
Nation of Orange: Was this in 2001?
Tomaselli: Yeah, it was in the fall of 2001. At that point it was a really long line for the autographs. We had just brought a basketball, and a Sharpie or whatever. Fine was standing off to the side and my father had been kind of mingling. He had a lot of his co-workers there from the 174th Spider Unit based in Syracuse. He had been mingling with them, and somehow he ended talking with Coach Fine. After talking to him for a good 15, maybe even 30 minutes. I started to get antsy. I started pulling my Dad’s shirt to get in line. My dad then introduced me to, who at the time he called Mr. Fine. I shook Bernie’s hand, and he asked me some basic questions. My age, where I went to school, that type of stuff. He asked if I liked it in Upstate New York. And then after that we got in line for the autograph session, and got my basketball signed by some of the players. There weren’t really any famous players or early superstars at that time. It was the year before Carmelo and Gerry. Basically, after getting the ball autographed, Bernie walked up to my father with an autographed team jersey that was an adult sized jersey. He gave it to my father to give to me, and I thanked him. My father and him continued to speak for another 15 minutes to a half-hour. They were talking a lot about, my father was working at a bombing range as well, so my Dad was explaining to Bernie how the plane’s fly, they come and drop bombs and my Dad controls them from his tower or whatever. They were talking about that. I didn’t really pick up on anything else they were talking about except that my Dad was telling Bernie how he was trying to get me into basketball because I was tall. At the time I wasn’t really a huge fan of basketball. I mean I liked Kansas Jayhawks basketball, but not really a ton. I was more into football coming from the south. I had just lived in Upstate NY for less than a year at that point.
Nation of Orange: Where did you live before that?
Tomaselli: Kansas for two years and Texas for six years. I was actually born in way northern Maine, but I was only up there for less than two years. A few months later, it was during Christmas break, it was probably January or New Years Day or the day after New Years Day, probably January 1st or 2nd, my parents called me up to their room. They said they had gotten an opportunity from Bernie to go with the team to Pittsburgh. I acted pretty excited. I overdid it a little bit, I wasn’t that excited. But my parents obviously were presenting this to me as a surprise. They basically told me I had to behave myself, and they went over the itinerary, they went over the details. I don’t remember exactly what they told me the details were. But I do remember they told me I would be in the same room as Bernie, I do remember that. Besides that, it wasn’t that, I don’t really remember exactly what they said. I was up in their room for a good hour talking to them, I do remember that.
Nation of Orange: They were very excited to give you that opportunity, they were doing something they thought you would enjoy?
Tomaselli: Yeah, yeah. I had told other reporters, my parents went all out for me in two areas. In religion and sports. They knew I loved sports. My Dad really wanted to get me into sports. I think a lot of it was he was realizing I had some homosexual tendencies. Straight guys, you know, gay guys don’t like sports is probably what he was thinking. That’s just a stereotype, you know, obviously I love sports. Anyways, a few weeks later, it was towards the end of January, my father dropped me off in Syracuse. I boarded a bus full of support staff. It was a lot of college age kids wearing golf shirts with the Syracuse logo on it. So I know it wasn’t just fans. And the guy sitting next to me was in charge of me, from what I understood. He basically had my parents phone number in case I needed anything. He didn’t really pay much attention to me. I don’t remember his name or anything.
Nation of Orange: Where did you board the bus?
Tomaselli: It wasn’t on Syracuse University. I don’t remember any buildings that spark a memory besides it being urban. I don’t remember the Carrier Dome or anything like that at that point either. And that’s really the only thing in Syracuse that I would remember as a back drop. I was on this bus, I remember the trip being uneventful. By the time I was in Pittsburgh, I remember being in the lobby, Bernie wasn’t there. And I started to regret going on the trip because I felt really alone and really left out. So I looked around and looked around. Finally, after a couple hours had passed, Bernie came up behind me, put his arm around me and reintroduced himself to me, and said, “let’s go up to the room.” So we went up to the hotel room. I just put my bag on the floor and got settled, picked which bed I was going to be sleeping in. Then we went back downstairs. I was starving at the time because dinner was really late that night. It was a team dinner in one of the conference rooms at the hotel. There was a big buffet set up. All I really remember was eating macaroni and cheese, I don’t really remember what the main dish was. I remember sitting across from Bernie Fine, and he introduced me to a couple people at the table. I don’t remember their names, and Bernie didn’t really pay much attention to me at dinner. He did tell me after I was done eating, he gave me the hotel room key and said, “why don’t you go up and I’ll be up behind you.” So I went up to the room. I remember he came up about a half-hour later. I was watching TV, but I don’t really remember what I was watching because I didn’t really know anything about any TV show seeing how my parents were so strict. All I was really able to watch was Disney Channel and sports. So, he came up and made some small talk with me about school and that type of thing. And then he turned the channel to porn. I remember it being lesbian porn. I remember being kind of caught off guard because porn was such an evil thing to me because I sat in church every day. I knew that porn was evil and that type of thing. I remember watching it for a couple minutes and Bernie looked at me and said, “do you like it?” I would shrug my shoulders. Then Bernie would ask me to pull my shorts down, which I did, not thinking anything of it because by that time my father had been doing that type of thing, and didn’t give me any privacy, so it was something I thought was normal between an adult and a child. So, by that time, he looked at me and he said, “I see you have an erection.” I was kind of like shaking my head, and he said, “that means you like what you’re watching.” And I was like, “OK.” And then he asked me if I wanted to ejaculate. I had to ask him what that meant. And he described it as whenever you like watching, when your penis gets really hard because you like what you see or who you’re with, and stuff comes out. And I’m like, OK. I said no I don’t really feel like doing that. It wasn’t a solid, absolute no. He felt like obviously he could convince me. And after two or three times he did convince me. But I asked him how to masturbate basically. I didn’t use that word because I didn’t know that word back then. You rub your hand up and down on your penis several times. So I started to do that, and I said “like this?” and he said “yes.” After 15 minutes of me doing that, he said, “sometimes friends will touch each other to help each other ejaculate.” So I said, “OK.” He put his hands on my stomach and up to my chest in a circular type motion. And about a half-hour later I was able to ejaculate. He said, “that’s not a lot that came out, but that will get better as you get older.” I just shook my head, and at that moment I felt very very ashamed. Because I was always told that porn was evil and that masturbation was evil. Just sitting in the church, that’s what I had heard every Sunday. Not necessarily what Bernie had done, I didn’t think he did anything wrong. So Bernie went and got a piece of toilet paper and was going to wipe my penis off. Instead, I took the piece of toilet paper and did it myself. He took it and threw it away in the trash can. At this point I was sitting on the bed with my shorts pulled up and head up against the head rest, head board, watching the porn still. Then Bernie changed the channel and came and sat next to me on the same bed to my left. He said he needed to sit on my bed because his left eye was dominant and he couldn’t see the TV if he sat on his bed. So that made perfect sense to me being 13 years old. So I sat that and a few minutes after we were watching whatever show we were watching at the time, he slipped his hand down my shorts. I kind of jerked away initially, just because it was something unexpected. But he said, “it’s OK it’s OK.” I let him fondle me for a good 10-15 minutes. He would stop for a couple hours and then fondle me again. This went on at least 4 or maybe even 5 times during that night. It didn’t really stop and it said 3am, and I fell asleep to him fondling me. The next morning I woke up and he was standing there with his suit on. He had two thumbs up and said, “it’s game day.” At that point the shame left my mind because I was still feeling pretty ashamed before that. I was into this game. I don’t really remember much about the game other than Syracuse lost and Pittsburgh won. I actually remember kind of rooting for Pittsburgh secretly just because the mob mentality type thing and being inside the arena with Pittsburgh fans. I remember sitting around 10 rows behind the Syracuse bench, more towards the middle behind the scorers’ table. I didn’t have any dealings before during or after the game. I took that same bus to the game and back from the game. When I got back to my hotel, I grabbed my back pack on the bus, it was the same type of bus with different staff members on it. I’m not sure if they switched staff or whatever. Because I know they had been on a road trip from Tennessee. So I’m not sure if some of the staff had joined them from Tennessee, but I’m only speculating at that point. Once I got back to Syracuse, my Dad picked me up and I didn’t tell him a thing about what happened for multiple reasons. One was that I was exhausted and kind of grumpy. Also if I told him anything that happened in the hotel room I would be in huge trouble. Because I masturbated one, and I watched porn. So I was still feeling pretty ashamed about that as I went home. Nothing happened after that.
Nation of Orange: I know there’s been some speculation or questions out there about being a 13 year old kid and having your parents send you on a trip without anyone that you knew or sending you off on your own. Was there any conversation about that or did you feel it was a strange thing at the time?
Tomaselli: It was nothing I had done before. I was definitely given a long speech about behaving. And this was my opportunity, they said, to prove that I could handle certain things. This was my opportunity to show I could behave and be responsible. They definitely stressed that multiple times. This was my chance to prove myself that they could trust me. Like I said, my parents went all out for me when it came to sports, and an opportunity like that you aren’t just going to pass up. It’s not like they thought they were leaving me with Bernie Fine by myself. This was a trip with lots of people. There were tons of college age kids on the bus. I had babysitters that would come over to the house that were high schoolers. They trusted college age kids. They trusted these were adults. They trusted Bernie Fine was watching younger people. Not necessarily kids, but at least had worked his way up to be a coach which is someone that’s supposed to be a role model in the community. It didn’t really take much trust from them except the title was trust I’m sure.
Nation of Orange: When you went on the trip did you take a camera with you and take any pictures of yourself with the team while you were down there?
Tomaselli: No.
Nation of Orange: Did it ever cross your mind as something to do before you left?
Tomaselli: That was something that was brought up. My parents would always, you know if us kids went to summer camp or something they could give us a disposable camera or something like that. But the only thing that really happened was my parents were going to tape the game. If that was brought up, I’m sure actually it was, something that I had wanted to do. It would’ve been something that we just forgot to pack or get.
Nation of Orange: Back to after the Pittsburgh trip, you didn’t have any contact with Bernie Fine for about a year. And at some point you were invited over to his house for a party. Can you explain how that came to be? Who went to the party with you? And what happened at the party?
Tomaselli: My Dad and I were invited to the Syracuse/Pitt game in 2003. This was the game that kind of turned their season around and propelled them to the championship. Because their season had been mediocre to this point. They were playing the #2 ranked Pittsburgh team, who if they had won that game would have been ranked #1 for the first time in their history. My father and I were sitting fairly close to the Syracuse bench. Fine had gotten us tickets to it. I don’t know if you remember but Syracuse fans rushed the court three times.
Nation of Orange: I remember.
Tomaselli: The refs would push people off the court and look at the play and everything. Boeheim was actually on the mic at one point. So after the third time we rushed the court, my Dad and I weren’t really into rushing the court but we were kind of forced to with all the people and everything. We were on the court and trying to get away from everything. It was crazy with all the people fighting and there was so much going on, on the court. I’m sure with my Dad being as conservative as he was didn’t want me to hear some of the language and some of the stuff going on on the court. So we kind of tried to go off to the side and that’s where we ran into Bernie and he just said, “hell of a game huh?” My Dad was like, “yeah it was.” At that point he invited my Dad and I to a party at his house, an after party, that wasn’t really, I don’t think it was planned until just then. My father said unfortunately he couldn’t make it. It was so loud in there he was kind of yelling really loud, and Bernie kind of yelled back at him, “how about you let Zach come with us and I’ll have you pick him up in the morning.” My Dad didn’t really have much time to make a decision on that because of the chaos going on. My Dad said, “actually that kind of works out” because basically my Dad was working that night and had to fly some mission or do something there at the air base, and he was going to drive me all the way back to Watertown and then drive back to work that night. So it worked out good for him that I would spend the night at Bernie’s house. He asked Bernie though if Bernie would drop me off at the air base and Bernie agreed to that. I remember my Dad couldn’t call my Mom. My Mom would always want to be in on discussions, and would want my father to call her if he was going to make a decision like that. And I remember afterwards my Mom and my Dad fought quite a bit about that. My Dad was trying to explain to her that he couldn’t call her because it was so loud. Anyways, I ended up going to Fine’s house. I didn’t even go with Fine to his house, I don’t even know who it was. And I’m sure my Mom wouldn’t have been happen if she knew that. It was kind of a stranger I went with to the house. So I got there and there were some players there, the big name players weren’t there. I know there was a party going on at Boeheim’s house, or I think there was because across the street there were so many cars. And now I know that Boeheim was living across the street at the time, or at least I think he did I’m not sure. But there was a lot of activity going on over there. I remember getting out of the care and there were vehicles on both sides of the road, lights on and stuff like that. I went inside the house, there were some players there some support staff there, there was medical trainers there and a couple other coaches there maybe assistant coaches. Boeheim wasn’t there or anybody really famous or anything. There weren’t any kids there that I saw so I had a really hard time talking to anybody. And people would kind of look down to me and introduce themselves to me and try to be nice, but I just never connected with anybody. Because not only was I only 14, but I was very immature for my age the way my father stunted my growth. As the crowd kind of wore down, Fine went up in the hallway where his bedroom was and Laurie was introduced to me as Laurie, so I didn’t even know for 100% sure if that was his wife or not. He said, “do you want to sleep in the bed with me?” Afterwards I really said no, not because I was worried about doing anything with him, but I wanted to sleep by myself because I was really tired. And Laurie said, “well hun you can sleep wherever you want to.” I ended up sleeping on the couch that night. But that’s something that really verified to investigators because when I talked to investigators last Wednesday or a couple Wednesdays ago, the tape hadn’t been released yet so no one knew Laurie Fine was involved and knew everything. So I told investigators that Laurie Fine was right there when Bernie asked me that. They kind of looked at each other and that’s when they felt it kind of corroborated my story because Laurie knew that he was asking to do something inappropriate with me. I slept on the couch that night and in the morning Bernie drove me. He couldn’t get on the air base because he didn’t military ID. I remember that being an issue because I could but he couldn’t. So I was stuck at the guard gate, and the guards were trying to find my dad for the better part of an hour or two. I remember being pretty ticked off about that. Then I went home. Later that year, Syracuse beat my Jayhawks in the championship and I was so upset about that I went to school the next day and kids were picking on me because they were all Syracuse fans. I had to go home crying that day because I was so upset. So my parents knew if Fine were to contact me after that to invite me to do anything to do with Syracuse I would say no and that it didn’t matter how close I could get to the team and stuff because I was so loyal to Kansas basketball by then.
Nation of Orange: You were mad at Syracuse for beating them.
Tomaselli: Yeah. Exactly.
Nation of Orange: Did he ever try to do anything with you at the party similar to what he did at the hotel room?
Tomaselli: No. That to me, if I were to have an opinion on that, this is why I think there’s at least a fourth victim out there because the way a pedophile’s mind worked, you’ve heard what he’s done to Bobby Davis. He wouldn’t let that kid go, he wouldn’t let that kid say no. So the fact that he let me say no says to me that there’s somebody else in the picture by then.
Nation of Orange: Do you think if you would’ve said yes and went up with him to his room something would’ve happened?
Tomaselli: Oh definitely.
Nation of Orange: After the party ended, you never had any contact with him after that at any point?
Tomaselli: No, not at all.
Nation of Orange: Fast forwarding from then until now, talk about why you decided to come forward now, why you didn’t before, and how all of that played out.
Tomaselli: Well basically, I had told a friend up here about both my father’s abuse and Bernie’s. She had always wanted me to come forward, her name is Rose Ryan by the way, she was in the original article. I told her about the five year statute. I never really felt going forward about Bernie was worth it. Because going forward and telling police about my father was one thing, he’s a lieutenant colonel in the Air Forece, it would be an even bigger thing or a bigger stretch to believe an assistant coach at Syracuse would be doing anything wrong. I didn’t feel like it was worth it, until I saw the Sandusky stuff, and that got my mind thinking. At the same time, while I was thinking, I also came back to that five year statute thing. It wouldn’t be worth coming forward, I didn’t think, at that point. My Grandmother came and got me and was telling me, “hey Zach, who was that guy that you were telling me molested you again?” I told her and she said, “you need to come here.” And it was scrolling across the bottom of ESPN. I’m like, “oh my God.” Then I still at that point didn’t feel like telling anyone because I was telling myself nothing would happen to him because of the five year statute. It was not worth it. Then I saw people weren’t believing Bobby Davis and his brother. They were feeling like it was some sort of set up like Bobby Davis and his step brother, half brother or whatever it is, were just making something up. And I knew that wasn’t true, and I was watching Colin Cowherd the ESPN Radio show. I saw that even Colin said let’s wait on this, this isn’t the same thing as Sandusky where there’s a grand jury report. So I kind of was like that’s not right. At this point I felt like it was worth coming forward because people weren’t believing Bobby and his brother. I felt that, you know, maybe some parent out there might be wondering whether to let their child go with Bernie on a trip. And I wanted to make sure that never happened again. That Bernie never got the opportunity to do that. I went forward and I e-mailed Colin Cowhwerd. Either him or his producers forwarded that e-mail to Mark Schwarz who asked me to get in contact with him immediately and gave me his phone number. I called Mark and had a brief yet long conversation about what happened. He called me back later and asked if it would be OK if he gave my number to Bobby Davis. I said sure and within a minute Bobby called. He talked to me and he was trying to, I think, corroborate my story a little bit in the beginning just asking me questions. He would be nice to me and be like “this guy is a predator I don’t care what other people say.” Then he would ask me does he have a swimming pool, does he have a swimming pool and ask me those types of questions. I think by the end of the conversation he believed me and knew I was telling the truth. We had a very brief conversation about what happened in our lives and how that stunted our growth.
Nation of Orange: How many times did you and Bobby talk?
Tomaselli: Probably three. They were all less than five minutes. The last two were him basically trying to get me to call the police. He had basically told me to call the victim’s unit or whatever, special victim’s unit or whatever it’s called there. I did and I told him I got a voice mail. And he’s like, “well I got a secretary.” And I said, “well Bobby I called maybe it’s different.” And he wasn’t really believing I called. So he said, “alright here’s the guy who’s working on my case. Here’s the guy I talked to.” So I got the guy’s number from him. I called him and was able to get right through. His name was Raul Santana, Detective Raul Santana. I told him briefly. He asked basically what my accusations were. I briefly told him. The next day being Tuesday, I got a phone call from Detective Clark Farry, he asked me to go into details. I told him in detail what happened. He called me back after about five minutes and said, “listen, we believe your story. We believe this guy is a predator. There’s some stuff in your story that makes us believe exactly what you’re saying. Can you please meet up with us? What are you doing tomorrow?” And I said, “nothing.” So they offered to basically pay for our trip to go down to meet them. And they’d cut two and a half hours off our trip by meeting us in Albany. So they met us in Albany in a hotel for about four hours and it was pretty grueling. It was details, a moment to moment description of what happened. It was being recorded. They typed up an affidavit which I signed. They told me to stay away from the district attorney and any of his investigators because they would, “f**k it up.” He said they were having issues with them because they said the DA was buddy buddy with Bernie. Basically, after that, the Syracuse Post-Standard called me one day and said they were running this story no matter what.
Nation of Orange: If you could maybe explain how the Post-Standard got a-hold of your story and how they got a-hold of you?
Tomaselli: The Post-Standard called me and said they were running this tomorrow about me. And I said, “what story?” And they told me they knew everything, that they were going to run it with or without my details so they were kind of black mailing me. So I did end up giving them some of the details to make sure my side was told, but they knew it already. I didn’t know how. So I told the detectives that, and they were pretty upset. What I think happened was Mark Schwarz got upset that, you know ESPN was taking some heat at that time for this story, so I think Mark Schwarz was upset that ESPN probably told him no as far as running my story. Saying that it didn’t meet their standard for reporting or whatever that term is that they keep using. I think he either sold it or funneled it to The Post-Standard so that The Post-Standard would run it and Schwarz would have something to talk about. That’s what I honestly think.
Nation of Orange: The other thing that’s out there, and I think you’ve already touched on it. This is not something unique to you, but a question for all of the accusers in this case, people have wondered why you guys went to the media as opposed to the police. But it sounds like after you talked to Mark, you did go to the police first before you did any interviews for a media outlet. So maybe you could clarify that.
Tomaselli: That’s exactly what happened. I went to Mark before I went to police because I was told that there was a five year limit, a five year statute of limitations. So I thought it would be pointless to go to police. I felt like police, if I went to them, they weren’t just going to randomly run my story. So I felt the only justice that could be done to prevent children from coming in contact with Bernie would be to get it out to the public and media. And yeah I do think that’s exactly what happened. It could’ve been that the police leaked my affidavit, but what’s more likely is that it was Mark Schwarz. Because he’s the only one who knew my story besides the police. And I was keeping Mark updated minute to minute on what was happening, because I felt I at least owed him that because he had gotten me in contact with Bobby and contact with the police.
Nation of Orange: There was also a report out there that some police or other type of authorities told you to stop talking to the media and threatened you. Could you kind of explain how that happened and when that happened?
Tomaselli: The police were very concerned that I was going to go to the media after my story leaked. We already knew long before this story leaked that my father was going to deny me going to Pittsburgh. The police were actually having this huge conference on how to approach this and they were going to ask my father before he went to the media and hopefully get my father to say that I did go to Pittsburgh. But before they could do that this was out in the media and my father said no I didn’t go. So the police were calling me on Sunday and saying, “Zach how are you doing buddy? You know we’re in your corner. Don’t go to the media.” They kept repeating that and repeating that. They were calling me from Bernie’s house telling me not to go to the media. Then at one point the U.S. Attorney was on the phone, I don’t remember his name or anything, and he said not to go to the media. And I said I wouldn’t. My next door neighbor is a lawyer, and he said, “it would look really horrible for your case if you have jury members in your case that think you’re a liar.” So I knew I couldn’t just keep that quiet and let people think I’m this huge liar while the police investigated for months on end before I was allowed to say anything. They told me, “once this is done and Bernie has been convicted or whatever through court, then you can go on Oprah for all we care.” Basically, this happened because Clark Farry was talking to my Grandmother and she was confirming stuff like I had told her about Bernie prior to this hitting the news and stuff. Clark said, “can I speak to Zach?” And she’s like, “oh no he’s getting ready for an appointment at 4, an interview.” So he was like, “what?” And he asked to speak with me as I was heading out the door. I took the phone and he was like, “tell me what’s going on at 4.” I tried to get around it and I said, “listen, I’m talking.” And he said, “Zach if you talk we will arrest you. You’re going to f**k up this case, don’t f**k up this case. We’re in your corner Zach, but we are not going to be in your corner if you go to the media. And we won’t even talk to you.” He was just going off at me. At that point it made me so much madder that I accepted every media request at that point. And I’ve been trying to tell my story ever since. They wouldn’t talk to me now. That USA Today article made them at least talk to me.
Nation of Orange: Is that the one where it said you had been asking for updates but weren’t getting any?
Tomaselli: Yeah. Updates I wasn’t getting. Which is fine, I can see why I wasn’t getting insider information anymore, but at least, I was giving them updates. They were trying to corroborate with someone that I had gone to Pittsburgh with my friends or whatever. And I know one of my friends who was going to corroborate that, once this got to the media was not going to corroborate it all of a sudden because his Mom works at the school my Dad is on the school board for, and he was afraid my Dad would cost his Mom her job if he went forward to the police or the media that I went to Pittsburgh.
Nation or Orange: Do you have that person’s name?
Tomaselli: I don’t want to share that at this point. I kind of finally just because friends with him again and talking to him, and don’t really want to make him mad again. But basically I could have given the police ten more names to corroborate that, but this kid didn’t even tell me he had told the police he didn’t remember. He didn’t tell me, so I didn’t know he had even met with police. And the police didn’t tell me, “hey your friend didn’t corroborate this.” And they could’ve done that. So now I had to find out through him that he told police he couldn’t remember. I could’ve told them at the time, you know, here’s a list of other friends that are willing to share, you know? Instead I had to find out myself and give them that list later. And I just e-mailed them again today, and I e-mailed Detective Farry. I had both detective’s info, but I lost Detective Santan’s, so I e-mailed Detective Farry and said I didn’t want to talk to him anymore I wanted to talk to Santana because he’s a lot nicer. He hasn’t gotten back to me at all. I e-mailed him late last night (Author’s note: Thursday night). So the police are back to not talking to me again. As I understand it, the U.S. Attorney’s office has taken over the case and I haven’t heard from them. And I’d rather talk to the people who have taken the lead on the case rather than the Syracuse police who probably have little involvement now.
Nation of Orange: You said when you told USA Today you were having trouble getting information from the police. But I believe you had also posted on Facebook or said in another article, that the police had obtained physical evidence from the Fine’s home and that they also had some evidence that placed you in Pittsburgh. What evidence was it that they found and if you could elaborate on that a little bit?
Tomaselli: I can’t be specific because while I don’t have a great relationship with the police, I don’t want to give out insider information and have a horrible relationship with them and not hear from that at all anymore. I will tell you that those filing cabinets that they pulled there was some sort of link in there that links Fine and me through that. I do know that at this point. There is physical evidence, I’m not going to be specific and tell you what the found or didn’t find, but they went and grabbed the video of both Syracuse/Pitt games and are having the FBI and Secret Service analyze those games looking for me. It’s hard because I only have one picture of me when I was 14, and I was wearing sunglasses and a hat. Otherwise my parents have all pictures. Good luck getting anything from them. I’ve also been told, I think, based on what they’ve told me, that they have other search warrants coming. I’ve seen that they’ve searched his office and stuff. I’m not really sure what I told them that would make them search his office, but I think that at some point they are going to come up with a search warrant for my house. I think that’s just to get, I don’t know if they would go all out and get a search warrant just for this, but my autographed stuff is there, the autographed basketball to the autographed jersey. I would hope that my father didn’t get rid of it. I would hope they’d go in there and at least prove I was at the autograph session. And they have been able to corroborate the Pittsburgh stuff as well. I’m not really worried about that. I know the media, you guys are wanting to prove that. To me, it’s the investigation that’s really really important. I know a lot of media believes me, but I want the investigation even more to turn out right.
Nation of Orange: I wanted to get your response to people claiming you’re doing this to help your own case going on in Maine right now.
Tomaselli: It does not help my case one bit. It has hurt my case here in Maine and I’ll tell you why. The district attorney here, there have been cases with people with similar charges, and charges worse than me, come away with this a misdimeanor, no jail time, and no sex offender list registry. I know every case is different. This is a youth pastor who used his authority over kids to touch kids. And for him to get off with that…Compare that to my case, and this will come out tomorrow (Saturday), I’m meeting with someone tomorrow, to actually come out with everything that happened here in Maine. Because I want it off my chest, I want to come clean. You know, my lawyer is not going to be happy, but it’s something I want to do at this point because this isn’t about me. I feel like I’m being selfish by keeping secrets or whatever. The district attorney now that the eyes of the whole country to see how he handles this case, well not the whole country but the media is involved, the national media is involved in this case, he has given me just the worst possible plea deals. Including jail time, which I am petrified of jail time and prison, he has offered 12 years all but three suspended. That would possibly mean I would do at least three maybe less if the judge gives me less than that. The worst part is, that’s if I can make it through jail, is he wants me to have lifetime sex offender registry and he’s unwilling to budge on that. And that to me gives me no future because lifetime sex offender, I don’t really even know what I would do for a job. Everywhere I went it would be so horrible. It would just be tough to have that. And it would be hard to know that people that did worse things than me are walking around with nothing. And this is really because he wants to show that they prosecute their cases hard here. And so many have asked are you just doing this to get sympathy for your case? Well he watches the news so he’s not going to give me a deal because he’s afraid people are going to call him out on that. So I’m getting a rotten deal here, and I kind of was warned by my lawyer this would happen ahead of time. So no, it doesn’t help my case whatsoever in any way. I didn’t want people to know that I have sex charges. As much as that was reported around here, it wasn’t big like this, you know?. Now all my high school friends know about it, where as before they didn’t, you know?. It’s actually been very very painful. It has not helped me whatsoever. It’s to the point where I want people to know exactly what happened here in Maine. I’m going to tell 100% truth, and it’s not going to be pretty, but it’s something where I want people to know. I don’t want that to be something that’s keeping people from believing me. I really want experts to analyze my case and I want them to see how an abused person can turn into an abuser. And I hopefully want to maybe write a book about this one day. If not, at least spread the word that if you’re an abused person, you’re not only hurting whoever other victims might be from the same person that was abusing but you’re hurting yourself because you might turn into an abuser. It’s absolutely ludicrous that my charges have anything to do with why I came forward.
Nation of Orange: You’re statement basically as far as why you’ve come forward and being so public with all of this, is that you had some bad things happen to you when you were younger, and it caused issues with you, as it would with anyone who experienced those things, and you want to stop the cycle of abuse, and make people more aware of it to try to stop it from happening to other people and encourage others to come forward. Is that a fair statement?
Tomaselli: Yes that’s exactly right.
Nation of Orange: Could you respond to those that are suggesting you’re only doing this for your “15 minutes of fame?”
Tomaselli: Well I wish it was only 15 minutes of fame. It in no way, whatever fame is given me, has not been worth it whatsoever. I think to most people I’m more infamous than famous. I’ve had plenty of people say I’m a hero and plenty of people on Facebook and messages say, “hey I’m a sex abuse victim what do I do?” That’s obviously made me feel a lot better. I’m glad I’m helping people come out of the woods as far as their abuse. I’m glad I’m able to give advice to a certain extent.
Nation of Orange: Do you regret coming forward now that all of this has happened? You’ve had some backlash from this and a lot of negative press as a result of this. Do you regret coming forward at all?
Tomaselli: That’s something I expected to an extent. I regret that it was leaked. Well, I’m upset it was leaked, I guess I don’t regret it because it wasn’t something I did. I don’t regret this. I know in the long run it was the right thing to do. I know that whatever the right thing to do is, it always works itself out. I know it’ll work out eventually. I know that someday I’ll be thankful I came forward. Not right now. I’m struggling. It’s very tough and draining and tiring, and painful especially. But I don’t regret it. And I know in the future I won’t regret it. I know I’ll always have those negative people. But my true friends have backed me even though I’ve lost some friends who obviously weren’t my friends if I’ve lost them over this. But no I don’t regret it.
Nation of Orange: When the whole investigation is done and over with, with Bernie Fine, what do you expect the end result will be?
Tomaselli: I don’t know what I expect. But I certainly hope for justice. I expect that at the very least, nobody is going to be leaving their child alone with Bernie. That’s all that counts to me. Whether he goes to jail, whether he gets in trouble or not, that doesn’t worry me. Like as far as my own case goes, I feel that now that I’m in counseling and getting help, I’m not worried that I’m a threat to other children at this point. And I’m not necessarily worried that Bernie is a threat to other children. I don’t think you have to lock someone up to keep them from hurting children. Any parent now that has a decent brain is going to know Bernie Fine’s name, and he’s not coaching anymore so he’s not in a position to see kids and use his power anymore. I expect that parents will no longer be leaving their kids with Bernie Fine.
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