Bill Conlin Scandal: 7th Person Alleges Abuse By Philly Columnist

PHILADELPHIA — A seventh person has come forward with allegations she was sexually abused by former Philadelphia Daily News sports columnist Bill Conlin.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports ( ) the woman says Conlin assaulted her at the beach in Margate, N.J., when she was 11 years old in the 1960s. http://bit.ly/sPrYkt

Conlin retired from the Daily News on Tuesday, hours before The Inquirer posted a story about allegations that he had abused four people decades ago when they were children. Two other accusers have since come forward.

The Inquirer reports the unidentified woman who spoke out Friday says Conlin, a family friend, assaulted her twice while he was visiting the Jersey Shore.

The 77-year-old Conlin has vowed through his lawyer, George Bochetto, to clear his name. Messages left for Bochetto were not immediately returned.

Comments

[klincklanc]

07:47 AM on 12/26/2011

He should move to Happy Valley. They are a little more tolerant of this sort of thing than most.

[soundping]

05:11 PM on 12/25/2011

The Catholic Church can always put him in the Pedophile Protection Program.

[Assumed Name]

07:29 PM on 12/25/2011

Ah...the priesthood, I presume?

[ghee99]

03:22 PM on 12/25/2011

i'm all for going after ALL child abusers

and anyone that into sports is VERY suspect in my book

i mean, lets face it, they're just not that interesting to watch

(of course if you have something dark in your soul to hide, and totally getting into watching boring sports helps, then i could see why he might be into it so much)

but all that aside, i don't really know what to do about allegations like this

i mean, anyone3 can say 30 or 40 years ago some (now old) guy touched me,

and unless (as is the case with that other guy who is really into sports, to the point that he even coached them at U of Penn) there is any sort of evidence or witnesses, i think we should just let it go

i mean, if there is no evidence, and you re saying it happened many decades ago, i think you just have to let it pass, as its too easy to just ruin someone's life with a claim they can't defend themselves against.

[Bor Zoi]

03:15 PM on 12/25/2011

He used to be a mainstay on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters".
I wonder if they also knew about this and this is the reason why they dismissed him from the panel.

ESPN has already shown that they will bury information if they do not think it will aid them:
They had information about Sandusky for several years but did not pass it on to the police.

[Gigity]

05:15 PM on 12/26/2011

Sandusky? Or do you mean the assistant coach at Syracuse? They knew about that guy for years and did nothing about it.

[foolishness]

03:06 PM on 12/25/2011

People don't get how this happens, but it's really not that surprising. People such as (allegedly) Sandusky and Conlin or even Roman-Catholic Priests are abusing systems that give them contact with children. It has nothing to do with the profession and everything to do with these people and manipulating trust. Pedophiles don't just go and rape/molest random kids. It's generally a process of becoming a trusted individual in a community or within a family system. There's a reason there's multiple victims per accuser.

[Joehater]

02:25 PM on 12/25/2011

Is sports just a way for perverts to abuse the innocent?

[foolishness]

03:04 PM on 12/25/2011

I'm pretty sure this guy is a sports writer and by his size has never played a sport in his life (but I suppose the same could be falsely assumed of Charlie Weiss).

[ghee99]

03:25 PM on 12/25/2011

yup, i mean lets face it

sports are generally pretty boring

and devoting a huge chunk of your life to watching, studying, commenting something as banal as sports makes no sense

unless it some sort of mental coping device, an obsession that allows you to live you desires you have that you don't want to face.

[Pantsy]

03:35 PM on 12/27/2011

so, you're saying nobody genuinely likes sports, but do so because of some sort of mental problem?

[Countess]

01:53 PM on 12/25/2011

Our fanaticism and worship of sports makes it all but inevitable that there will be massive cover ups of abuses that involve sports stars and celebrity reporters. We are such hypocrites when it comes to sports completely ignoring the massive greed and corruption of our college sports where coaches are made millionaires while players they recruit many illegally are paid nothing and when it becomes obvious their school will be suspened for violations the crooked coaches quit just in time and jump to the NFL. I have always enjoyed sports but I could never become a fan fanatic like the people around me and I could never identify with the one percent owners who get the public to pay for their stadiums while claiming they are for free enterprise. To me it is just entertainment nothing more nothing less and I don't have my identity wrapped up in it.

[William Brock]

01:40 PM on 12/25/2011

The Sports World is now equal to the Church in it's sex abuse cases against children.....I always wondered why adults were attracted to children's games. Now I see clearly why!

[neverconservtve]

02:32 PM on 12/25/2011

I believe that is an overstatement. The Catholic church has abused thousands across the globe.

[foolishness]

03:10 PM on 12/25/2011

You're beyond naive if you don't think that random coaches haven't abused thousands across the globe in any given year. That's not some sick defense of the church but it's just a reminder that pedophiles and abusers hide in shadows in almost ever system.

[foolishness]

03:08 PM on 12/25/2011

This has nothing to do with the "sports world" it's about individuals inside a specific system abusing trust that has been given to them.

[shanefox]

01:19 PM on 12/25/2011

If he'd been a priest he'd just be transferred to another parish.

[Orange22]

01:05 PM on 12/25/2011

if it walks like a duck....shoot it

[KheSahn068]

12:42 PM on 12/25/2011

....and the Catholic Church took flak because of their pedophile problem? Look deep and hard into the educational system and sports community. It's about to get REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD!

[Assumed Name]

01:02 PM on 12/25/2011

One hopes: these people need to be rooted out, exposed and tossed behind bars for a really, really, really long time.

[mgrant33301]

12:16 PM on 12/25/2011

it's probably true.
just like the 9-9-9 guy and his accusers.
what happened to the 999 guy? he just *disappeared*

[Catothemuchyounger]

12:13 PM on 12/25/2011

I posted this below, but will put it here, as it responds to more than one post. Statutes of limitations are an extremely important protection to people accused of crimes. The idea that they should be eliminated for this kind of case appears to make sense, given the facts of this matter, with 7 accusers. It appears highly probable that the crimes occurred. But the average case is nothing like that, and it is much more difficult to defend oneself years after the crime. Pick a random date from twenty years ago. Would you be able to recall and testify as to what you were doing? Be able to pick out untrue elements in an alleged victims recollecti­on of events?

And when the subject crime is committed against children, some of them very young, there can be significan­t issues as to how accurate their memories are. During the 80s, it was common belief that children's testimony was highly credible. A lot of people went to jail on evidence that in retrospect is considered highly suspect, with testimony from children about things that might have happened mixed in with accounts of events that were impossible­. Some people eventually were pardoned or had their conviction­s over turned. Things could only be more problematic if the accusation­s concern events from thirty years old.

The statutes of limitation on civil suits for child molestatio­n have been extended in most states. But here we are talking about the government trying to lock someone up.

[Assumed Name]

01:04 PM on 12/25/2011

...for child rape there should be no limitation for bringing forth a charge.

[whitebeach]

02:16 PM on 12/25/2011

Of course there should be limitations. No alleged crime does so much to ruin the accused's life, whether he or she is guilty or not. And as cato points out, it's not as if this particular category of accusation has some sterling record for integrity. A great many people have been falsely accused, with great assists from bad shrinks, publicity hungry prosecutors, biased cops, and mediacreeps like Geraldo. Not to mention ordinary citizens like, perhaps, yourself. I remember being on jury duty once and talking with a fellow juror about presumption of innocence. She said flatly that she could not presume innocence if the case involved child abuse. Too many people share this notion that accusations of this nature should be tantamount to a guilty verdict. Statutes of limitation exist for good reasons, and I don't see why they shouldn't exist for this kind of allegation. Maybe key them to the adulthood of the accuser, say ten years after reaching that age.

[Joehater]

02:26 PM on 12/25/2011

I agree.

[when will it end]

12:04 PM on 12/25/2011

I truly believe that any parent that allows their children to go on sleepovers and camps is borderline criminally negligent. And only now do my friends begin to see that children are extremely vulnerable when put in the path of a child predator. Furthermore, mothers that allow their "boyfriends" near their daughters are equally negligent. Kids can not protect themselves. It is a parent's responsiblity to REDUCE the chances of a predator abusing their kids until the child is old enough to protect themselves (or at least try to). And one last thing, predators are smart they know where to "troll" for kids. Keep kids out of harm's way.

[bootster bootster]

12:27 PM on 12/25/2011

Lock the children up? You must have respect for your fellow man in order for a healthy society to thrive. To be that untrustworthy of your fellow man seems like childish behavior to me.

[Beth Hefty]

01:28 PM on 12/25/2011

No one lives in a bubble. While I agree that we must keep our children safe, I can't think of everyone as a potential abuser. Children are abused at school, by friends, by neighbors, by strangers. Do we lock them up?

[bradenton]

11:42 AM on 12/25/2011

They must've been finger lickin' good.

[Assumed Name]

01:05 PM on 12/25/2011

Hmmm...sick or tasteless? Let's go with both.

[mater]

01:15 PM on 12/25/2011

Both.