Syracuse, N.Y. -- The Bernie Fine saga illustrates a common predicament in child-molesting cases: without an eyewitness, they often boil down to the credibility of the accusers.

Two of Fine’s four accusers have recanted their allegations about the fired Syracuse University basketball coach. The most recent was last week, when Zach Tomaselli admitted he’d lied for five months.

Now one of the two others, Mike Lang, is coming under scrutiny from Fine’s supporters.

Years after Lang’s stepbrother, Bobby Davis, accused Fine of sexual abuse, Lang reached out to Fine and renewed their social relationship, Fine’s friends say.

On top of that, Lang’s name has almost disappeared from recently filed court papers in a slander suit he and Davis filed against SU and coach Jim Boeheim. But Lang’s friends stand by his honesty.

Three people who attended a 60th birthday party for Fine in 2006 say Lang was among the 300 to 400 attendees. Lang hugged Fine in a ballroom at the Holiday Inn in Carrier Circle, according to the three supporters of Fine.

“Definitely it was Mike Lang,” said Sam Carello, SU’s team manager in the mid-1980s who also knew Lang from Henninger High School. Carello said he talked to Lang at the party.

At an SU game in the Carrier Dome in 2010, Lang sat next to Ludwig Vita and Kathy Rowe using tickets that Fine hands out to friends, they both said. It was eight years after Davis first made the allegations.

Lang’s lawyer did not respond to questions about Lang renewing his ties with Fine. Lang has declined requests for an interview.

Lang’s presence at the party and at the SU game does not prove what happened three decades ago between Fine and Lang, 45, of Constantia.

Victims sometimes reconnect with their abusers years later out of a feeling of loyalty that come from the abuser’s grooming of the victim, said Allison Young, director of sexual abuse services at Elmcrest Children’s Center in Syracuse. But it’s often the case that a victim never again wants to be anywhere near his abuser, she said.

Fine, 66, has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged. Fine did not respond to requests to talk about Lang’s allegations.

Lang causes firestorm

In 2002, Davis told The Post-Standard and ESPN that Fine had molested Davis as a child when he was an SU ball boy. In a 2002 interview with The Post-Standard, Lang said he had not been abused by Fine. Neither news organization would publish Davis’ allegation without a second accuser or other corroboration.

In November, Lang became the second accuser, and the story erupted across the country, eventually resulting in SU firing Fine.

Davis and Lang sued Boeheim and SU for slander in December over the coach’s publicly calling them liars who were only out to make money. In the lawsuit, Davis’ allegations against Fine are detailed, while Lang’s portion of the suit is sparse.

Since then, it appears Lang has been marginalized even more in the suit.

Davis has filed three sworn affidavits in support of the slander suit. Lang has filed none.

Lang’s name was missing last week when another affidavit was filed that focuses solely on Davis. Ellen Ford, a clinical director at Vera House and the Rape Crisis Center, said in the affidavit that it’s common for victims of childhood sexual abuse to not report it for years. She wrote that she was giving the affidavit in response to Boeheim’s statement that Davis was lying. She made no mention of Lang.

Allred refused to comment on why Lang is absent in most of his lawsuit’s paperwork.

Denials in 2002

Ten years ago, Lang repeatedly told The Post-Standard in a recorded interview that Fine had never sexually abused him.

“He never done nothing with me — never,” Lang said then. “I would tell you.”

This is an excerpt from a phone interview between Post-Standard reporter Mike McAndrew and Mike Lang conducted on Oct. 28, 2002.

In 2002, Lang said he had not talked to Fine in about 15 years. He had stopped socializing with the coach because Lang had started smoking cigarettes and knew Fine would not approve, Lang said.

“And that’s the only reason why,” he said.

It’s not unusual for victims to at first deny sexual abuse, according to a psychologist and a social worker.

“It is common for victims to vacillate, at one point denying the abuse and protecting the offender, and at other points doing whatever is possible to distance themselves from that relationship — including turning the offender over to the forces of the law,” said Karl Hanson, a Canadian psychologist who studies the behavior of sex offenders for the Canadian government.

A child molester will often try to convince his victims that they’re complicit in the abuse, and that it’s a secret they must keep together, Hanson said.

“The challenge for the victim is to psychologically separate from this special relationship,” he said. “Rarely is it accomplished overnight. It requires a struggle.”

Ford, who’s counseled child-molestation victims for more than 20 years, said in an interview that it’s common for victims to have “delayed disclosure.” The delay can include outright denials, Ford said.

“Denying it really has to do with the fear of not being believed, how people would respond, the possibility of being blamed for it,” Ford said. “And survivors take on the shame of what should be the perpetrator’s shame. They take it on themselves.”

Since the story broke, Lang has declined The Post-Standard’s requests for an interview. He’s done brief interviews with ESPN and CNN, but not since shortly after the allegations became public. In those interviews, Lang said that when he was an SU ball boy, Fine molested him between 15 and 40 times. He said Fine touched his leg and penis.

Friends support Lang

Lang has big displays of SU sports in his home. On the outside of his house, he has a huge sign reading, “La La Land.” He owns two businesses — a diner and a campground in Constantia.

Lang’s friends acknowledge his past denials might make him less credible to those who don’t know him. But he would never make up such a serious allegation, Lang’s friends say. They felt so strongly about his character that they rallied around him, starting a Facebook page called “We’ve Got Your Back LaLa,” using the nickname he was given long ago. The Facebook page has nearly 300 fans.

“You can always count on Mike and his integrity,” said John Fornito, a friend of Lang’s since they were classmates at Henninger High School in the early 1980s. “He’s not gonna lie to you.”

“His credibility is shot with people who don’t know him, I would think, because one time he said nothing happened and the next time he said something did happen,” said Jake Shafer, a friend of Lang’s late father.

Shafer said he believes Lang’s recent version.

“Mike is not the type of guy that’s gonna wreck a guy’s reputation like that unless it really happened,” said Shafer, who’s kept in touch with Lang over the years. “And he wouldn’t do it for his stepbrother either.”

Fornito was with Lang in November the night after ESPN first broadcast the allegations of Lang and Davis. They talked for three hours at Fornito’s home in Cicero.

“He told me, ‘Yeah, it’s true,’” Fornito said. “Those things had happened and he never told anybody. He was embarrassed, he was ashamed. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want people perceiving that he was gay.”

Misstatements?

Lang has yet to publicly address his contradictory statements. When a reporter asked him about them at a news conference Feb. 28, Allred stepped to the microphone and said Lang wouldn’t comment. She indicated Lang’s 2002 statements were being mischaracterized.

“He feels there have been some misstatements about what he has said in the past,” Allred said. “At the appropriate time, and in the appropriate venue, which will most likely be in a legal setting, he will be very happy to clarify what happened, and why he said and did what he said and did.”

When asked to explain, Allred declined.

Davis — who said he kept Fine’s abuse of him a secret for nearly two decades — offered up this explanation for his stepbrother.

Lang called Davis a few days after Penn State fired football coach Joe Paterno over child-molesting allegations against a former assistant, Davis said. In that call, Lang revealed for the first time that Fine abused him, Davis said. Lang was crying over the phone, Davis said.

Lang told Davis and Fornito that he did it to stop child molesters from hurting more children.

“Mike’s a pretty private person, and he didn’t want his name out there,” Fornito said. “Then this thing with Penn State happened, and Mike took a step back and said, ‘It’s time to do something about it, time to stop these guys. ’”

Contact John O'Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.