The audio recording of an interview between two Syracuse police detectives and Zach Tomaselli, the third accuser of Bernie Fine, reveals Tomaselli initially claimed he was molested on a road trip to attend a Syracuse basketball game at Connecticut, not a game at Pittsburgh.

Tomaselli later changed his story upon learning Connecticut and Syracuse did not play during the 2001-02 season. He has since identified Syracuse’s game at Pittsburgh on Jan. 22, 2002, as the game that he attended.

The portion of the recording in which Tomaselli discussed Connecticut with the detectives was played for The Daily Orange on Jan. 27 with the approval of Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick told The Post-Standard in an article published Jan. 19 that Tomaselli changed his story from Connecticut to Pittsburgh. When Tomaselli called Fitzpatrick a liar to the media, Fitzpatrick offered to play that portion of the recording for The Daily Orange.

The detectives’ interview with Tomaselli was conducted in Albany on Nov. 23 by Clark Farry and Raul Santana of the Syracuse Police Department.

‘We also want to talk about this UConn thing and how we made sense of that,’ Farry said nearly 48 minutes into the interview. ‘Because you’ll have to explain that for us.’

‘Before I forget, and then I promise I’ll shut up,’ Farry said shortly thereafter, ‘when you first spoke with Raul (Santana) the other day, you mentioned UConn. And I think you began to figure out it wasn’t UConn. Explain that to us again.’

Tomaselli launched into an explanation in which he said he told Marcus Spaulding, who he called his best friend from high school, about going on the road trip. He said he discussed the trip with Spaulding, 23, of Copenhagen, N.Y., back in high school.

When the news about Fine first broke in November, Tomaselli said he went through the full story with Spaulding. It was during this conversation, Tomaselli said on the recording, that Spaulding indicated remembering the game was against Pittsburgh and not Connecticut.

‘He remembers about a trip with Syracuse. He had remembered it as Pittsburgh,’ Tomaselli said on the recording.

He then said Spaulding asked him whether it was a Pittsburgh game that Tomaselli actually attended.

‘And I said, ‘Well, yeah,” Tomaselli said on the recording. ‘I definitely switched my story really fast because I wasn’t sure. I knew it was a rivalry game. And I wasn’t familiar, and I’m still not 100 percent familiar with their exact rivals, but I knew it was a big, big game.’

Spaulding could not be reached for comment, but he told The Post-Standard in an article published Jan. 20 he has no memory of Tomaselli attending the game or telling him about it in high school.

Tomaselli told The Daily Orange on Jan. 27 he thinks Spaulding is denying he remembers the aforementioned events because he ‘doesn’t want to be out in the media.’ He reiterated that idea Monday.

After explaining to Farry and Santana how the story changed from a game against Connecticut to a game against Pittsburgh, Farry attempts to clarify.

‘So initially you thought, but you’re not positive, but you thought it was UConn, right?’ Farry asked.

‘Yeah,’ Tomaselli responded on the recording. ‘It’s not that I wasn’t positive it was UConn. My mind really did think it was.’

A request to interview Farry and Santana for this story was denied. Syracuse police spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan said members of the police department are prohibited from commenting about an ongoing investigation.

***

In the interview Jan. 27, The Daily Orange asked Tomaselli to whom he ever mentioned attending a game between Syracuse and Connecticut.

He said with confidence he never mentioned UConn to either Farry or Santana.

‘By the time it became anything formal, even over the phone with Farry or Santana, it was always Pittsburgh,’ Tomaselli said.

Aware of his statements in the recording, The Daily Orange again asked for affirmation that Tomaselli had remained consistent with detectives about attending a game against Pittsburgh.

‘Right,’ Tomaselli said.

Tomaselli said there was a chance he mentioned Connecticut to the very first person he spoke with at the SPD back in November as well.

But he explained the only person to whom he definitely mentioned attending a game against Connecticut was Mark Schwarz, an ‘Outside the Lines’ reporter for ESPN.

Tomaselli said he spoke with Schwarz days after Schwarz’s initial report Nov. 17 in which Bobby Davis and Mike Lang brought forth allegations of sexual abuse against Fine.

‘I called Mark Schwarz because I knew that since ESPN was getting hammered that they would want to hear my story,’ Tomaselli said. ‘And I definitely wanted to speak with him and back up Bobby and Mike.’

Tomaselli said he walked Schwarz through the entire series of events surrounding his own situation. Tomaselli admitted that instead of saying Pittsburgh, he told Schwarz it was a rivalry game possibly against UConn.

Schwarz confirmed Tomaselli’s account of their phone conversation.

***

During the interview with Farry and Santana, Tomaselli was also questioned about the exact date of the game.

It was determined the game Tomaselli claims to have attended took place on Jan. 22, 2002, in Pittsburgh. He said he traveled via bus to Pittsburgh on Jan. 21, spent the night in the hotel and attended the game the next day.

It was during this night, which Tomaselli said he spent in the same room as Fine, that he was allegedly molested.

Jan. 22, 2002, was a Tuesday. In his interview with Farry and Santana, Tomaselli thought he attended a weekend game.

‘I would imagine, and again I can’t say for sure, that it was a weekend game or an end-of-the-week game or a day we didn’t have school,’ Tomaselli said on the recording. ‘Because my parents put education pretty high, so I wouldn’t think that they would pull me out of school for that.’

Since then, Tomaselli acknowledged that the attendance records from the Copenhagen School District near Watertown, where Tomaselli grew up, show that he was in school on the day of the game and that he took a test.

Fitzpatrick, whose office obtained the records, confirmed this.

‘The school officials — I don’t know if that specifically means the superintendent — whoever the record keeper is at the Copenhagen School District would be prepared to testify under oath that Zach Tomaselli was in school on that date,’ Fitzpatrick said.

***

When confronted about the exchange with detectives Farry and Santana involving Connecticut on the recording, Tomaselli changed his story again.

Tomaselli initially told The Daily Orange that when he called SPD, the first person to answer the phone was a police dispatcher. And he said it was possible that he mentioned attending a game between Syracuse and UConn to this person, who Tomaselli did not previously identify.

But on Monday, when he was read the exchange on the recording, Tomaselli said Santana was the first who took his call at SPD’s Abused Persons Unit.

‘The first person that took the phone was Santana,’ Tomaselli said. ‘If you call the abused persons line, it’s always a detective that actually answers. So that was the first person that I talked to.

‘What I meant by dispatcher is the first person to ever answer the phone, which now because you’re jogging my memory …

… Whenever I called, the first person to answer, I remember, was the person I told it to. And you would think that’s a dispatcher, but it really was Santana.’

Later in the same interview, though, Tomaselli told The Daily Orange he was informed for the first time on Monday that Santana was the one who took the initial phone call back in November.

‘I never — until right now, until you just said this — knew that the first person I talked to was Detective Santana,’ Tomaselli said.

This, however, is indeterminable by the portion of the audio recording played for The Daily Orange. It does not indicate who Tomaselli initially spoke to at the police department.

‘Well, he is,’ Tomaselli said, referring to Santana. ‘Because he’s the first person that picked up at the Abused Persons Unit.’

Tomaselli said he did not realize one of the two detectives interviewing him was the same person who took his initial phone call only days earlier. He didn’t make the connection.

But on the audio recording, Farry questions Tomaselli about a specific previous conversation he had with Santana — the conversation in which Tomaselli mentioned attending a game against UConn.

There is no confusion or hesitation on Tomaselli’s part as Farry completes the question, even though he claimed to be unaware of having a previous conversation with Santana until Monday.

The Daily Orange asked Tomaselli why he did not question Farry’s statement that he had already talked to Santana.

‘OK, well, that’s a good question,’ Tomaselli said. ‘Then maybe I did know.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu 

Published on February 6, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13