The attorney for Zacharay Tomaselli, who has accused a former SyracuseUniversityassistant basketball coach of molestation, has announced that he filed a lawsuit Thursday to rebut comments putting Tomaselli’s credibility into question.

Tomaselli’s lawyer, Jeffrey Anderson, said the suit would rebut statements that were made by former coach Bernie Fine’s attorneys and a prosecutor in the case.

Tomaselli, 23, claims that he was molested by Fine inside the ex-coach’s Pittsburgh hotel room on Jan. 21, 2002. Tomaselli said that Fine had made arrangements for the then-13-year-old to make the trip to Pittsburgh to watch Syracuse play.

Fine was fired from his position on Nov. 27, but has denied Tomaselli’s claims, as well as those of two former ballboys who alleged Fine molested them in the 1980s.

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick made statements to the press on Wednesday, discussing the case. He vouched for the credibility of the two ballboys, but said that the statute of limitations had passed on the crimes they reported. He also said there have been some doubts cast on Tomaselli’s claim by Tomaselli’s school records and the team’s travel records.

Fine’s counsel said that these inconsistencies are evidence that Tomaselli had made false claims against the 65-year-old former coach.

At a news conference in Pittsburgh Thursday, Anderson told the press that he filed the lawsuit to dispute these statements because they had labeled Tomaselli a “liar.”

The discrepancies between Tomaselli’s account and the records Fitzpatrick cited, Anderson said, can be explained. He said Tomaselli traveled on a bus with some college-aged boosters, rather than on the team’s flight, and that Fine had made the arrangements for the boy to ride the bus.

The lawsuit states that at the time of the alleged molestation, Tomaselli was under the age of legal consent and the sexual conduct had been unwanted. It also claimed that the abuse caused “substantial harm” to Tomaselli.

Neither the attorney nor Tomaselli provided any further details on how Fine had allegedly molested the boy, other than to add that he had shown him pornography at the time, but both stated Tomaselli had been unaware of the nature of the conduct, based upon his religious upbringing, until 2008 when he had told a friend and the friend told him it was abuse.

Anderson said that his client waited to come forward out of shame and a feeling of responsibility for the incident.

Tomaselli is currently facing charges in the molestation of a minor boy inMaine and has told reporters he will be pleading guilty.