COLLEGES The attorney for a 23-year-old Maine man who accused fired Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting him is dropping a civil lawsuit filed in Pittsburgh. Jeffrey R. Anderson, attorney for Zach Tomaselli, said he “will be dismissing his case’’ against Fine and will no longer represent Tomaselli. Anderson dropped the lawsuit after Tomaselli told The Post-Standard of Syracuse he altered e-mails from Syracuse police before forwarding them to the paper in an attempt to bolster his account. Tomaselli, who plead guilty last month to sexually abusing a teenage boy and is free on bail until sentencing next month, insists he didn’t make up allegations that Fine molested him in a Pittsburgh hotel room when he was 13 . . . Under an agreement negotiated by former football coach Joe Paterno in 2008, Penn State could pay millions of dollars in severance to a half-dozen assistants who weren’t retained by new football coach Bill O’Brien . . . Penn State trustees elected Karen Peetz, a vice chairman of The Bank of New York Mellon, president of the 32-member Board of Trustees as the school works through the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal . . . North Carolina guard Dexter Strickland will miss the rest of the season after tearing his right anterior cruciate ligament in Thursday’s win at Virginia Tech.
Maine accuser drops suit against Fine
Sports Log
Ducks’ Beauchemin signs extension
HOCKEY The Anaheim Ducks agreed to a three-year contract extension with Francois Beauchemin worth $10.5 million, keeping the defenseman off the free agent market this summer. Beauchemin, 31, Anaheim’s top-scoring defenseman with six goals and 12 assists, won the Stanley Cup with the Ducks in 2007 before signing with Toronto as a free agent in 2009. The Ducks reacquired him Feb. 9 last year . . . Ivan Pravilov, 48, a Ukrainian hockey coach accused of fondling a 14-year-old boy attending clinics in the United States, faces six to eight years in prison if convicted of taking a minor over a state line for sexual purposes. A federal magistrate ruled Pravilov, a mentor to several NHL and college players, must spend a week in detention before a Jan. 27 bail hearing. Maxim Starchenko, one of Pravilov’s former players, recently published a book alleging the coach regularly abused players physically, mentally and sexually.
Wambach, Dempsey tops in US soccer