In fact, he has never acknowledged that it was false. He quietly deleted the post and made no attempt whatsoever to indicate it was false or issue a retraction.
It was proven false in spite of his lies to tens of millions of people, many of whom passed it along to tens of millions of other Americans, many of whom probably still believe the lie.
In fact if you were to post a poll on CB today about whether the attack was over a gay tryst, you would get a lot of rationalizing about how there is at least some truth there--when there is none (as proven in the criminal trial).
In regard to agreeing with his efforts to create a free speech forum, I agree. I commend him for that, and I offered no criticism.