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King drops appeal of $1 million judgment The Associated Press State & Local Wire January 13, 2000, Thursday, BC cycle OMAHA, Neb.
The former head of the defunct Franklin Federal Credit Union, who initially did notanswer a $1 million lawsuit judgment against him, now is dropping an appeal of that order.
The judgment resulted from a lawsuit filed in 1991 by Paul Bonacci of Omaha, who alleged King and others forced him to take part in a child-prostitution ring in Omaha in the 1980s.Lawrence E. King Jr. is in federal prison for embezzling millions of dollars from a now-closed Omaha credit union.
The judgment resulted from a lawsuit filed in 1991 by Paul Bonacci of Omaha, who alleged King and others forced him to take part in a child-prostitution ring in Omaha in the 1980s. All 15 other defendants were cleared. A grand jury also found the child sex abuse allegations to be a hoax.
But King never filed a court response to Bonacci's accusations, so a federal judge entered a default judgment. King appealed to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but recently dropped the appeal, letting the judgment stand.
However, it is believed King frittered away the money he embezzled and had no assets when he went to prison for 15 years.
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Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
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To date, King has paid back $25. Kings wife, Alice, agreed to pay less in restitution under her plea bargain, $3 million. She has made good on $10 of that amount. While not indicative of all criminal plea bargains with financial institution plunderers, the Franklin case shows how some individuals convicted on bank fraud related charges have either secreted their ill gotten gains out of the reach of federal authorities or have spent it all. For NCUA, which paid out more than $41 million to depositors of the failed Nebraska credit union, recoveries have been more successful, but officials don't tout it as one of their best efforts. The agency has recouped about $1 million in the case, including a $300,000 bond claim from Cumis Insurance Society, $377,000 from the sale of Franklin loans, $150,000 from the sale of the Kings home and a smaller amount from the sale of other King assets, such as furs and jewelry. |
Obviously, the amount of losses we had in that case were so large that
well never see that money, said Leonard Skiles,
president of NCUAs Asset Liquidation and Management Center, who is
responsible for selling off the assets of liquidated credit
unions.
Allan Meltzer, head of NCUAs litigation department, noted that there were few assets to recover from King and other Franklin figures. But Meltzer remains confident of further recoveries. By no means is this case over. I predict significant sums will be recovered, said Meltzer, noting that several civil suits against institution affiliated parties in the case are pending. The bulk of the recoveries are going to be from civil suits. The former manager/treasurer of Franklin, King was charged in a 40 count criminal indictment with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, income tax evasion and several other crimes. As part of a deal with federal prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy, making false entries and misapplication of funds, for which he was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Seven other individuals connected with the case were convicted on criminal charges. Six of them, including Alice King, received jail sentences. The Kings were named in the operation of a massive Ponzi scheme under which phony certificates of deposit on the credit union were issued and interest paid on the earliest purchases to maintain a facade of a viable program to later CD buyers. According to federal prosecutors, the Kings used the money to finance a lavish lifestyle, buying an Omaha mansion, furs, jewels, luxury cars and an expensive condominium in downtown Washington. As a result, despite the Kings restitution pledges, prosecutors believe all of the funds stolen from Franklin members and outside purchasers of CDs were dissipated. What money? asked U.S. Attorney Ron Lahners for Nebraska, when asked what resources the Kings had to satisfy the restitution order. |
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OMAHA, March 30 Magistrate Richard Kopf said he would recommend that Mr. King be taken to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Rochester, Minn., for treatment. He ruled that the defendant understood the charges against him but would be unable to assist in his defense in what is expected to be a long and complex trial. The 45-year-old Mr. King, who sang the National Anthem at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, is accused among other things of diverting money from the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, which closed in November 1988. The collapse of the credit union, from which officials said $39 million was missing, led to other avenues of inquiry, including whether money missing from the credit union was used to transport children around the country for immoral purposes. None of the investigators have declared that Mr. King personally recruited or abused young people. |
A 'Paranoid Disorder'
Magistrate Kopf said Mr. King thought he was competent to stand trial, but quoted Dr. Dysart as saying, ''The intellectual system of grandiosity leads to disorganization of thought processes, which gravely impairs the ability of Mr. King to withstand a lengthy trial.'' The magistrate said he would recommend to Federal District Judge William G. Cambridge that Mr. King be committed to a hospital for psychiatric treatment, and would ask for a report within four months on whether the defendant could face trial in the foreseeable future. Lawyers for both Mr. King and the prosecution said they did not expect to appeal the finding. Ron Lahners, the United States Attorney, said the prosecution agreed that Mr. King was not competent to stand trial and added, ''It's in the best interest of the defendant to get back into treatment.'' |
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LINCOLN, Neb.
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In a letter to Schmit, Hallberg said information she gave to former
chief investigator Jerry Lowe should be available to Berry.
Hallberg also is calling on the panel to find out who leaked confidential information to the committee about child abuse allegations. Hallberg said Monday she is writing members of the Franklin committee to ask them to determine the source of information that was printed in a Sunday Omaha World-Herald editorial on July 23. The editorial said: ''One child, who has been under psychiatric care, is said to believe that she saw George Bush at one of King's parties. This is the same person whose story of a severed head was looked into. Neither tale could be verified.'' Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, former vice chairman of the committee, and Lowe have said the information not only came from confidential committee reports but is wrong in that it attributes two pieces of information to one person. Hallberg said the Franklin committee should determine the source of the leak ''even to the point of putting individual committee members and law enforcement personnel involved in the investigations under oath.'' |
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LINCOLN, Neb.
The editorial praised Sen. Loran Schmit of Bellwood, committee chairman, for saying there was no verification of child abuse allegations tied to Lawrence E. King Jr., Franklin's former manager-treasurer who faces 40 fraud charges in a federal grand jury indictment. Chambers and Lowe resigned from the committee July 13 along with counsel Kirk Naylor Jr. to protest statements made by Schmit. |
Frank Partsch, The World-Herald's editorial page editor, declined
comment Tuesday on reaction to the Sunday editorial.
A portion of the editorial said: ''One child, who has been under psychiatric care, is said to believe that she saw George Bush at one of King's parties. This is the same person whose story of a severed head was looked into. Neither tale could be verified.'' Chambers said during a Monday interview with KKAR radio in Omaha the information came from the committee's confidential reports. ''What The World-Herald has done is lumped together statements and attribute them to one person and that is entirely erroneous. The statement they presented here is false,'' Chambers said. He said no child under psychiatric care has said she saw Bush at a party. ''The material about the homicides was made public when Senator Loran Schmit at a (June 22) public hearing read from one of these confidential reports, which the committee had not authorized him to do,'' he told KKAR. ''That was confidential information and my only hope is that it did not come from a member of the committee,'' he said. Lowe also told KKAR he was troubled by the inclusion of that information in the editorial. Chambers also questioned the editorial in light of what he said was the obvious relationship between Harold W. Andersen, World-Herald publisher, and King. Andersen headed an advisory board and led a building fund drive for the credit union. |
1 Posted on 01/19/2000 18:42:36 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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I read the entire transcript of the noted trial. Sickening.
2 Posted on 01/19/2000 18:51:16 PST by Boyd
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King dropped his appeal last week, huh? Did anybody pick up this AP report?
3 Posted on 01/19/2000 18:52:07 PST by aristeides (demosthenes@olg.com)
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Was anything said at the trial about the alleged sighting of Bush?
4 Posted on 01/19/2000 18:53:14 PST by aristeides (demosthenes@olg.com)
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OMAHA The judgment resulted from a suit filed in 1991 by Paul A. Bonacci of Omaha, who alleged that King and others forced him to take part in a child-prostitution ring in Omaha in the 1980s. All of the 15 other defendants were cleared. |
King, formerly the top officer of the failed Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, never filed any court response to
Bonacci's accusations. A federal judge entered a default judgment.
King appealed that judgment to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but recently agreed to drop the appeal. The court dismissed King's appeal Jan. 4. Thus the $ 1 million judgment stands, said John DeCamp of Lincoln, Bonacci's lawyer. However, it is generally believed that King frittered away in high living the money he embezzled and that he had no assets when he went to prison. He is serving a 15-year sentence in a Florence, Colo., federal prison. He will become eligible for parole on April 10, 2001. A Douglas County grand jury concluded in 1990 that similar allegations of child sexual abuse made by four youths, including Bonacci, were a hoax. |
5 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:00:26 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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There were a lot of figures alluded to, but I don't recall him. It is bi-partisan. One of the ones who is mentioned by name is a -D that would probably be your first guess.
There were multi-levels to these 'social gatherings'. Like Act I, II, and III.
Act I players may well have known nothing of the following 'Acts'. That is pointed out in the proceedings.
6 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:05:09 PST by Boyd
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Is there any reason why Franklin would have dropped his appeal if he were innocent? I have seen reports of appeals made pro se, i.e., without a lawyer, in U.S. courts of appeals. I have even seen at least one case where such an appellant won his case on appeal. I doubt if the rules of the Eight Circuit court of appeals forbid pro se appeals. And, being in jail, you'd think Franklin would have all the time in the world, plus access to a law library.
7 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:07:01 PST by aristeides (demosthenes@olg.com)
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You can buy DeCamp's book ($9.95) at this site http://www.prevailingwinds.org/reprintmain.html
The place is absolutely loaded with conspiracy literature, mostly from the "Left Wingnut" perspective. Lots of George Bush stuff, even one where he was behind the JFK assassination. In fact, just browsing the site, I saw several JFK “Mystery solved” books, all with different conclusions. You can pick you favorite.
8 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:12:05 PST by Ditto
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...who has diagnosed Mr. King as suffering from ''probable delusional paranoid disorder - grandiose type.'' A patient with such a disorder believes he has great powers to do things other people cannot.
I don't know what to make of this, but Mr. King sounds like presidential material.
How can anyone be 'forced' to run a child prostitution ring? Has this part of the story been truly discredited
9 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:13:31 PST by Fred Mertz
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Owen, 31, was convicted of perjury in 1991. Two grand juries and one trial jury said she lied when she told stories of sex
parties involving her, other minors and prominent Omaha men. A judge sentenced her to nine to 15 years in prison. She
remained free until her appeals were exhausted in 1996.
She first asked the Board of Pardons in 1997 to commute her sentence, but the board unanimously rejected her request for a hearing. Owen, who has married and now goes by Owen-Bystrom, also has filed a motion for post-conviction relief in Douglas County District Court. That motion asks for dismissal of charges, reduction of sentence or a new trial. A date for a hearing hasn't been set. The only other person still serving a sentence related to events surrounding Franklin's failure is Lawrence E. King Jr., the credit union's former manager. King began serving a 15-year term in 1991 for embezzlement and other financial crimes. He is serving the sentence at a minimum-security federal prison in Florence, Colo., and will become eligible for parole on April 10, 2001, said Dan Cansino, prison case manager and coordinator. If King isn't paroled, he will complete his sentence on Oct. 9, 2002, assuming he gets credit for maximum good time, Cansino said. |
10 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:14:28 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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"Apparently, she's trying to get more publicity or whatever to get on a talk show so she could go where it's warm," John Gosch said of Noreen Gosch's testimony.
Noreen Gosch had not publicly mentioned having a 1997 visit with her son before her testimony Friday in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. She testified in a case involving the imprisoned Lawrence E. King Jr., former head of the failed Franklin Community Federal Credit Union of Omaha. John Gosch said that if their son had returned to the Des Moines area, he probably would have gone to the couple's home, where John Gosch was living and where Johnny Gosch grew up, instead of his mother's apartment. Responding on Monday, Noreen Gosch said: "I would think any father would be delighted that his son is alive instead of trying to attack the boy's mother." The couple divorced in 1993. |
Noreen Gosch met Monday with police officers for about an hour
and told them about the brief reunion she says she had with her
son.
"In the past she told us something similar to this and then chose to recant it," West Des Moines Police Capt. Bob Rushing said earlier. Monday night, West Des Moines police said two detectives had been assigned to investigate the new information in the Gosch case. For years, Noreen Gosch has said that she that her son was taken by a ring of international pornographers who abuse children. Johnny Gosch was with another man when he arrived at her West Des Moines apartment, she said. She didn't learn the other man's identity, she said. Noreen Gosch said her son, who would now be 29, asked her not to reveal that he had contacted her because it would endanger him. Asked why she didn't place her son under police protection in 1997, she said that she didn't have that option. "They would have left immediately if I had tried to call the police," she said. Noreen Gosch said she has not heard from her son since that meeting and doesn't know his whereabouts. She told about the 1997 encounter last week while testifying in a civil case against King, who is serving a term in a federal prison in Colorado for embezzling millions of dollars from the Franklin Credit Union, which he headed. Paul A. Bonacci, 31, of Omaha, claims in a 1991 lawsuit against King and 15 other defendants that he was a victim of sexual abuse. All the other defendants have been cleared and dismissed from the case. In 1997, U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom said, "There has not been one word of evidence ... to support Bonacci's claims." King has not responded to Bonacci's lawsuit. Thus, Urbom entered a default judgment against King and must determine any damages. At the court hearing, Noreen Gosch testified about her visits with Bonacci, who claimed in 1991 that he rode in a car that was used to abduct Johnny Gosch. Polk County Attorney John Sarcone said investigators concluded that Bonacci's story was not credible. |
11 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:21:04 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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While many a Black has ingratiated themself to the power elite when it comes to crunch time, time and again they are made expendable.
Not that it's unique to the Clintonistas [and King was not of that time period nor party], but consider Ron Brown, Hazel O'Leary, Mike Espy, Jocelyn Elders, [and very nearly Vernon Jordan]--all left to hang out to dry, and in Brown's case, irreversibly...
Memo to Lawrence King re: your considering an appeal:
"Bro', take the fall and go away quietly..."
12 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:22:31 PST by metalbird1
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Wallaby, great research! Perhaps you and Boyd know this, but the Springfield prison psyciatric facility is famous for being the place where government whistleblowers are sent for "reprogramming." I'm assuming this Federal Medical Center is part of it. So for one of their staff psychiatrists to diagnose King with a "paranoid disorder" means he probably isn't. Sounds like King was ordered by his superiors to drop his lawsuit to prevent any further dirt from coming out in a trial about them, followed by his being discredited. Especially critical during GW's election bid.
13 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:24:58 PST by jedediah smith
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Thanks for your help.
14 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:29:15 PST by Boyd
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>...a child prostitution ring? Has this part of the story been truly discredited
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The Clinton camp ducks alleged bugging of Seattle summit, Insight discovers State Department 'pimp' account and foreign embassies express shock about FBI-led espionage caper. Blackmail, lies and deceit may be the only fitting description of the 1993 Seattle Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, summit where dignitaries from 17 countries are reported to have been placed under electronic surveillance by American agents. As Insight first reported last month, the Clinton administration is said by intelligence and security specialists - who admitted being involved - to have bugged the conclave and then provided classified secrets to the Democratic National Committee, or DNC (See "Sex, Spies and Videotape at Clinton's APEC Summit," Sept. 29). This in turn allegedly was used as bait to barter with potential big-buck donors for large contributions to the Democratic coffers, sources in and out of government claim.
Insight also detailed in earlier reports a series of alleged criminal activities, including the procuring of boys to engage in sexual activities with diplomats; FBI agents accepting thousands of dollars of kickbacks; and, the most serious offense, the White House providing top-secret trade information to two West Coast law firms working off the books for the DNC. The covert mission was so large that the government purchased about $250,000 in electronic surveillance equipment, including Konica cameras, from at least three private suppliers, according to classified records reviewed by Insight. American spies then collected raw economic data on Asian businesses through agents of the FBI, the Customs Service, Naval Intelligence, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the NSC, and the National Security Agency, or NSA, sources say. The FBI is believed to have bugged more than 300 locations, with electronic audio and video surveillance devices used to monitor 10,000 to 15,000 conversations - much of it real-time data that was bounced from satellites to the NSA. The monitoring stations usually were placed near a Secret Service perimeter or Naval Intelligence facilities. And many of the targets concerned large contracts with Vietnam, sources say. Larry Klayman, executive director of Judicial Watch, a private legal watchdog group suing the Commerce Department for trade records, suggests the bugging may be related to a possible surveillance operation on the late commerce secretary Ron Brown, suspected of taking bribes involving Vietnam contracts. But that alone doesn't explain how the DNC could have ended up with top-secret information. Ironically, Clinton boasted that this summit was based on a new spirit of trust in U.S. relations with Canada, Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Mexico and Papua New Guinea. Little wonder that exposure by Insight of this covert mission has been met with outrage around the world. "Is that what happened to our lumber deals?" asked George Rioux, a frustrated Canadian diplomat requesting copies of the story. Indonesian diplomat Hubudio Subardi says, "Everybody who learns about it would be surprised to hear about it." Japanese Embassy spokesman Tsuyoshi Yamamoto tells Insight, "Our government has not issued any complaint," but notes Japan bitterly complained to the State Department about another publicized incident. In 1995 NBC Nightly News reported the NSA had bugged the heads of state in Miami at the Summit of the Americas to promote free trade. NBC news also revealed that U.S. spies had intercepted a call made by a Japanese emissary from a Washington hotel shortly before Clinton was to meet Japan's prime minister in February 1994. The New York Times reported in 1995 that the CIA had eavesdropped on conversations in Geneva among Japanese officials and car-company executives and then fed those reports to U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, who had been pushing for better access to Japan's markets for U.S. cars and parts. Kantor thus learned Japan's bottom-line bargaining position. Outrageous as it may be to Americans who believe in openness and fair play, this sort of thing has been done regularly by the Clinton team. What is new is that APEC appears to have involved leaking of national-intelligence information for political fund-raising. Many embassies of the targeted nations asked if Insight knew who was compromised by the child-sex ring. No senior political leader was involved - it was "secondary" people, such as assistants to those responsible for cutting trade deals, intelligence sources say. It still is unclear who provided the boys to the dignitaries, but Insight has learned that the alleged sexual activities occurred in rooms at the West Coast Vance Hotel in Seattle. |
When Pete Shimondale, the general manager of the hotel, was asked by
Insight about the sexual allegations, he responded, "Oh
God. I didn't start here until 1994." He said authorities have not been
out to question him or review records of hotel guests but
declined to comment further. The boys are believed to have been 15 to 17 years old. As shocking as this may be, some say it's routine. A former Bush economic adviser observes, "The sex? That's done all the time. If a foreign diplomat wants a companion, the State Department provides it. It doesn't matter if it's a man or woman. They have a special fund set up for that." Another former NSC official who requested anonymity says other countries also do it. "I was offered every sexual favor you can imagine. I turned it down all the time. After a while they left me alone and stopped offering me." Government agencies alleged to be involved in this spying responded to Insight with carefully crafted half-denials and artfully dodged a series of questions with noncommittal answers. Confronted with questions about whether Naval Intelligence purchased or used electronic equipment from private consultants and suppliers for the operation, the first response by Navy spokesman Lt. Joe Walker was, "I don't know." But later Walker insisted, "The Navy was in no way involved in the bugging of hotels or restaurants. We did not purchase equipment." The FBI, which first declined to comment, insisted after the story broke that "we used no physical surveillance at hotels or restaurants" and "we used no microphones" but repeatedly refused to say whether wire tapping or wireless surveillance took place. And the FBI says information regarding its agents taking kickbacks has been forwarded to the Bureau's national security office for investigation. Pressed to answer whether the FBI is denying that the operation happened, an informed agent replied, "Listen, I don't want to go to jail." Told about the half-denials and vague responses, Insight's intelligence sources say that was to be expected. "But the bottom line," says a high official in the alleged operation, is this: "The FBI is lying. The FBI was there. Period. They used microphones." If true, the Clinton team crossed well over the line when it decided to bug hotel rooms, rental cars, popular waterfront restaurants including Salty's, and even the chartered boat that took the conferees to Blake Island. Sources confirm to Insight that the operation produced real-time data that after being moved to the NSA were sifted through by 20 to 30 NSA specialists and handled by a senior manager at NSA. The information then was passed to a senior NSC member and two NSC staffers. From there it landed in the hands of at least one San Francisco attorney and another West Coast law firm working off the books for the DNC. Attorneys were used because they can claim client confidentiality if ordered to reveal the nature of the information, its origin or destination, according to sources. The operation was approved by the "Secret Court," which clears such national-security operations, according to intelligence specialists. This court legally may authorize wiretapping, and all its writs and rulings are permanently sealed. In fact, monitoring of G-7 economic summits under prior administrations was approved through the Secret Court, says a former National Security Council official under Reagan, but never a fishing expedition on this scale. "We did it through the embassies," says the ex-NSC official. "We never bugged hotel rooms, and no physical surveillance was ever used." Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey claims no knowledge of the bugging of the APEC conference and insists if it was bugged the CIA would not have participated because it deals with a domestic situation. "We wouldn't have anything to do with that," Woolsey tells Insight. "The U.S. should not engage in industrial espionage. The CIA should not be doing intelligence on behalf of an American company that requests it. For one thing, it's a mess to figure out what is an American company these days." Woolsey acknowledges that the CIA collects intelligence on dual-use technology - businesses violating sanctions with Iraq and foreign entities giving bribes for contracts - operations that save American business billions of dollars a year. The companies, Woolsey says, are never aware of the CIA's involvement. "We preserve a level playing field and the American company has no idea why all of a sudden a contract is rebid," he says. But Woolsey insists that U.S. intelligence agencies "should not work for political parties," a situation that appears to have existed during the Clinton administration. For example, the DNC and CIA have been revealed in sworn testimony to have pushed White House access for $300,000 donor Roger Tamaraz. Likewise the DNC requested the White House to conduct security checks on alleged Latvian organized-crime leader Grigori Loutchansky, who had been formally invited to attend a $25,000 a plate DNC fund-raising dinner in 1995. He was uninvited under pressure after the DNC received classified information about Loutchansky's alleged Mafia ties, according to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward. Congressional investigators say that, if the Woodward and Insight stories continue to develop, these security leaks could turn a campaign-finance scandal into an impeachment hearing. Taylor Lawrence, majority staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, says, "If the [APEC] allegations are true, we would be very concerned and we would look at this, but we need hard evidence." The APEC surveillance tapes might provide the smoking gun. But at the moment investigators tell Insight they have no plan to secure those tapes until someone comes forward to testify about the covert Seattle mission and connects the dots. Stay tuned. It might happen. GRAPHIC: Photo (color), President Clinton on the boat ride to Blake Island during the APEC meeting he reportedly bugged gives a thumbs-up to Singapore Premier Goh Chok Tong, Canadian Premier Jean Chretien and Chinese President Jiang Zemin., By Sygma |
15 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:36:15 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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Unbelievable and sickening. Thanks for the post. I'm almost sorry I asked. Thanks again, Wallaby.
16 Posted on 01/19/2000 19:57:20 PST by Fred Mertz
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>There were multi-levels to these 'social gatherings'. Like Act I, II, and III.
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LINCOLN, Neb., Dec. 22
Three leading officials of the review board, which monitors the quality of care in Nebraskan foster homes, submitted the file Monday in a closed meeting with the Executive Board. It will be used by an investigative committee that the Executive Board had already begun forming to look into earlier reports of child sexual abuse and how that abuse might be linked to the collapse of a small Omaha credit union. Good Parties and Bad Parties One of the reports in the file, according to a source familiar with it, is an account by an interviewer of a narrative provided by a reputed victim, who described parties at various places, including Omaha and cities to which she was flown on the East Coast. ''The way she described it, some were good parties and some were bad parties,'' said this source, who went on to describe scenes of abuse, including one in which the victim, a teen-ager, was made to stand nude at a party while she was offered at auction to the highest bidder. ''I don't know if they can prove it,'' the source said, ''but if one-tenth of what that girl is saying is true, I'd sure hate to have her talking about me.'' The foster care agency's submission of the file is among the latest developments in a case that began surfacing Nov. 4, when the Government's National Credit Union Administration shut down the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union in Omaha. The agency, which oversees the nation's federally chartered credit unions and insures their deposits, subsequently filed suit against Lawrence E. King Jr., Franklin Community's manager and treasurer, charging him with diverting millions of dollars of the institution's money to his own purposes. In all, the agency says, Franklin Community is missing $38 million. |
Mr. King has not been accused of personally engaging in child sexual abuse. But a number of widening Federal and state
investigations into the credit union's collapse are aimed in part at determining whether any of the money he is accused of
embezzling was ever used to transport children or to pay them for sexual favors.
Mr. King, a 44-year-old former vice chairman of the National Black Republican Council, an official affiliate of the Republican Party, has denied all allegations of embezzlement, and in an interview last week his lawyer discounted any link between the credit union case and child abuse. Some Mystery Remains The number of children involved in that abuse remains something of a mystery, as does the identity of any foster homes involved. The person who spoke of the contents of the foster care agency's file declined to discuss these elements of the case. One of Franklin Community's employees, a man hired to sell large certificates of deposit that are said to have provided most of the funds that kept the credit union operating, said in a recent interview that on the day it was shut down, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation immediately began asking questions on other subjects. ''They asked me about child pornography, drugs and Larry King's life style, in exactly that order,'' he said. Subseqently, he said, he was called before a Federal grand jury in Omaha and asked to describe his job activities. The source who spoke of the file's contents said that it reflected efforts dating back several months to spur various investigative agencies to look into the possibility of abuse. And besides the report of auctioning of the services of a teen-ager, the source said, it contains information from other interviews, including some from a child care specialist, Julie Walters, who moved from Omaha late last year to take a position as a juvenile probation officer in Cincinnati. Mrs. Walters, reached by telephone, told of interviews with two teen-agers who, she said, described physical cruelty to children at foster care homes as well as sexual abuse of teen-agers at parties in Omaha, New York, Chicago and Washington. Earlier this week, she told an Omaha reporter of a teen-ager's description of a party involving sex between ''more than two people, same sex and opposite sex.'' ''It's a horrible thing for me professionally and emotionally,'' she said in the telephone interview, ''to go through watching kids disclosing things that are very traumatic for them, verbalizing situations in which they were victims and saying they knew that nothing would ever be done about it.'' But, she added, ''that is not uncommon for victims of child abuse.'' |
17 Posted on 01/19/2000 20:25:25 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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The Seattle piece was very pertinent. I remember when that was posted, I was astounded. Apparently, that is SOP.
Blackmail is universal.
18 Posted on 01/19/2000 20:31:40 PST by Boyd
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"A former Bush economic adviser observes, "The sex? That's done all the time."
Many are willing to believe the stories in the Insight article up to the point of any referance to previous administrations of the Repub kind. Then it all becomes lies to them.
With the amount of back up published info you've supplied only the
Blind can believe that the upper levels of the Repub party are lilly
white, well, pure as the driven slush Snow.
Somebody asked for one that was named in the Court testimony, well a real easy one for them to accept is Barney Frank. He was named in the public sworn testimony. He's a Dem. But NO REPUB would be involved, huh? :-)
19 Posted on 01/19/2000 20:58:06 PST by NDCORUP
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The operation was approved by the "Secret Court," which clears such national-security operations, according to intelligence specialists. This court legally may authorize wiretapping, and all its writs and rulings are permanently sealed.
So did the Secret Court approve the use of sex, or were they kept in the dark about that one? If they were, was the law broken?
The article doesn't seem to identify the two L.A. law firms that were given information gotten in this illicit way at the APEC conference. Wasn't Micky Kantor at a law firm in L.A. at that time (late 1993)?
20 Posted on 01/20/2000 04:41:04 PST by aristeides (demosthenes@olg.com)
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"He said no child under psychiatric care has said she saw Bush at a party."
Maybe Slick & Company learned "Parseing for Diversionary Purposes, Fun, and Profit" from previous masters of it. Reminds me of the whole public statement scene we observed during Moanica-gate.
One of the articles mentioned that King kept an expensive plush Washington Apartment. Guesss that was just for whenever he came to town to Sing at some Republican Party, huh?
Even living the type of life specified in these articles doesn't account for $39 million worth of expenditures. The APEC article quoted one official as saying 'we keep accounts for those purposes' (sex toys). Our money, or King's type of money?
21 Posted on 01/20/2000 04:57:18 PST by NDCORUP
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>plush Washington Apartment
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
|
OMAHA
Omaha attorney Thomas D. Stalnaker was named receiver of ''all bonds, notes, evidences of debt, checks, drafts, receivables and accounts, shares of stock in corporations'' issued to King or held by another for her. Cambridge also named Stalnaker receiver of ''all furniture, fixtures and personal property of every kind that has been removed by defendant from property located at 2441 California St. N.W., Washington, D.C., and any and all jewelry in which defendant has an ownership interest in.'' |
Lawrence E. King Jr., husband of Alice and codefendant in the suit, leased the Washington house located near Embassy Row
until he moved out in early November.
Lawrence King is former executive director of the failed Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, from which federal regulators contend almost $40 million is missing. King allegedly diverted money from Franklin Community for personal and business use, said the $3 million lawsuit filed by the National Credit Union Administration. Mrs. King allegedly participated indirectly, it said. Cambridge in November apponted attorney Keith I. Frederick as receiver for assets of Lawrence King. Allegations of sexual abuse and illegal drug use has surfaced in an investigation of Franklin Community by a special legislative committee. State Sens. Loren Schmit of Bellwood and Ernest Chambers of Omaha are committee chairman and vice chairman, respectively. Former CIA Director William Colby was interviewed Friday in Lincoln for a job as legal counsel to the committee. Schmit said five other candidates will be interviewed by the seven-member committee. |
22 Posted on 01/20/2000 07:18:27 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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>So did the Secret Court approve the use of sex, or were they kept in the dark about that one?
Well now, if we could answer those questions, I guess it wouldn't be a secret, right?
>Wasn't Micky Kantor at a law firm in L.A. at that time (late 1993)?
Bingo. Kantor hailed from Los Angeles' Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
23 Posted on 01/20/2000 07:31:40 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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Manatt, Phelps was founded as a spinoff of Los Angeles' O'Melveny & Myers:
O'Melveny & Myers has had a cadre of lawyers backing Clinton, including two associates on leave with the campaign and partners Thomas Donilon, a longtime Democratic adviser, and Warren Christopher, a firm chairman and a former deputy secretary of state. The firm won big when Christopher was named to head the Clinton-Gore transition.("WINNERS: THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY," The Connecticut Law Tribune, Pg. 14, November 16, 1992)
24 Posted on 01/20/2000 07:35:07 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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Did Colby Get the job as Counsul for the Committee? He WAS a good Republican!
April 29, 1996
Web posted at: 2:00 p.m. EDT
COBB ISLAND, Maryland (CNN) -- Search crews are combing the muddy waters of the Wicomico River and helicopters are scouring the area in a search for former CIA director William Colby.
Colby, 76, the CIA's chief spy in Saigon during the Vietnam War and the agency's director in the mid-1970s, was reported missing by neighbors after his canoe was found filled with water about a quarter mile from his vacation home.
"There is no visibility in any of the waters, so it's all done by feel," said William Porter, a dive team member. "It's a matter of trying to develop the best last-seen point, so we can deploy the search system from there and continue our work."
Twelve divers are on the scene and more have been called in, said Assistant Fire Chief Bobby Higgs. Sunday night, Coast Guard crews searched the waters for more than five hours, Petty Officer Joe Dye said.
No foul play was suspected, but an investigation is ongoing, Charles County Sheriff Fred Davis said.
Went canoeing Saturday
Authorities believe Colby went canoeing Saturday evening on the Wicomico River, directly across from Cobb Island in southern Maryland.
Petty Officer Dye said it looked as though Colby had not planned on being gone long.
"There were still dinner items on the table," he said.
Neighbors became suspicious of Colby's whereabouts after noticing his car still in the driveway late Sunday. Typically, Colby would have returned to Washington by then, the neighbors told authorities. Then, the canoe was discovered to be missing.
"From that point on he was a missing person," the sheriff said. "We are currently canvassing everybody up along the shoreline and anybody who might have seen anything."
Colby and the CIA
Colby began his intelligence career parachuting into France to fight Nazis. He joined the CIA in 1950 and headed the spy agency's Saigon office during the Vietnam War. He was CIA director from 1973 to 1976 under Presidents Nixon and Ford.
He was dismissed by Ford because of a growing feeling in the White House that he was cooperating too freely with congressional investigators looking into allegations of CIA wrongdoing.
Since his retirement from the agency, Colby has served as a Washington lawyer and consultant.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related story:
- Former CIA Chief missing - April 29
Related site:
FeedbackSend us your comments.Selected responses are posted daily. |
|
Copyright © 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
25 Posted on 01/20/2000 09:32:22 PST by NDCORUP
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"A former Bush economic adviser observes, "The sex? That's done all the time. If a foreign diplomat wants a companion, the State Department provides it. It doesn't matter if it's a man or woman. They have a special fund set up for that."
Oh. So this is OK, that the STATE DEPARTMENT is PIMPING for FOREIGN DIPLOMATS????!
This is making me sick to my stomach.
Where are the Bushies now? Hmmmmmmmmm? I doubt we'll hear from any of them on THIS thread.
26 Posted on 01/20/2000 09:45:42 PST by MadAsHell
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"All 15 other defendants were cleared."
Who were the other 15 defendants? Any names?
27 Posted on 01/20/2000 09:50:02 PST by MadAsHell
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"Who were the other 15 defendants? Any names?"
I hope a list exists, but I doubt it's available without the original suit. I don't know what happens to a suit that is withdrawn, which I believe that one was.
Maybe DeCamp mentions it in his writing.
28 Posted on 01/20/2000 12:03:39 PST by NDCORUP
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"to a suit that is withdrawn, which I believe that one was."
Sorry, I meant 'modified' or amended. But maybe somebody knows for sure.
29 Posted on 01/20/2000 12:07:29 PST by NDCORUP
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Well, you got Colby involved, now how about another CIA Director, Bill Casey ----
As ex-CIA head, Bill Colby, tells author John DeCamp in the foreword to THE FRANKLIN COVERUP:
"What you have to understand John, is that sometimes there are forces and events too big, too powerful, with so much at stake for other people or institutions, that you cannot do anything about them, no matter how evil or wrong they are and no matter how dedicated or sincere you are or how much evidence you have. That is simply one of the hard facts of life you have to face. You have done your part. You have tried to expose the evil and wrongdoing. It has hurt you terribly. But it has not killed you up to this point. I am telling you, get out of this before it does. Sometimes things are just too big for us to deal with, and we have to step aside and let history take its course. For you John, this is one of those times."
Can someone Verify that that is a correct quote from the foreword to that book? I don't have it myself, grabbed this off the web.
30 Posted on 01/20/2000 12:22:16 PST by NDCORUP
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A bit more ---
"because of a plea bargain arrangement with federal prosecutors and, as DeCamp says in his book, "Since the Douglas County grand jury deferred to the federal authorities, and since there was no trial of King on the federal embezzlement or any other charges, the evidence of child prostitution and abuse perpetrated by King was never presented in any court!"
That's a bit different than the paper's claim that charges were dismissed by the grand jury.
31 Posted on 01/20/2000 12:36:52 PST by NDCORUP
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And Colby's dead now, too, ain't he?
Could he have been referring to things like Paperclip or MK-ULTRA?! Gee, I wonder.... don't you?!
32 Posted on 01/20/2000 13:12:15 PST by MadAsHell
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Well, there are still a couple (few?)ex-CIA Directors left alive. Let's see who the last one standing is.
One guess ;-)
33 Posted on 01/20/2000 13:40:29 PST by NDCORUP
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an excerpt from The Jubilee Newspaper V9n5 1995 by Pat Shannan:
Former Nebraska state senator John W. DeCamp practices law in Lincoln, and his story strongly suggests duplicity at high levels of a government cover-up. In late April of 1995, he was contacted by several victims asking him to initiate civil litigation against whomever had caused their injuries. He immediately put together an investigation team to look at the event and try to determine what had happened.
Their investigation showed that the fertilizer bomb, as described by government officials as the single source of the enormous damage, is simply "not accurate." In addition to others, DeCamp enlisted the aid of the most respected (and "expensive," he says) bomb experts in the world — John A. Kennedy & Associates in Illinois. The Kennedy team had previously been retained to investigate the World Trade Center bombing where, we remind you, a truckload of ANFO similar in proportions to what was allegedly used in Oklahoma City was parked right next to a column in the enclosed garage but failed to bring down that column.
DeCamp was incensed at the government's announced intentions to destroy the remains of the Murrah Building on May 23rd. He prepared court documents to force the government to leave the remains of the building standing long enough for his experts to examine the shell and determine exactly what type of explosive was used on April 19th. As attorney for the several civil litigants, he certainly had every legal right to this information. Little did he expect to run into a surreptitious wall of subterfuge thrown up by the criminal defense team of Timothy McVeigh.
From his new and expanded version of The Franklin Cover-Up, John DeCamp says:
"Only hours before I was to file the legal papers for a civil action to keep the building standing, I was contacted by Timothy McVeigh's attorneys, who presented me with two major requests.
"First, they asked that I allow them to file the motions to keep the building standing so that the investigation could be conducted. They had cogent legal arguments for this request: because McVeigh was/is under federal criminal charges, he had the definite legal right to keep the building standing under federal rules of evidence which grant criminal defendants the right to preserve evidence that would significantly impact their defense. It was clear that if McVeigh's attorneys believed, or even suspected government cover-up, they would definitely want the building examined.
"Their second request was that I release from retainer the bomb investigation team I had retained — John A. Kennedy & Associates — which, they claimed, they wanted to hire.
"I granted those requests to McVeigh's attorneys.
"A few hours later I watched in horror as CNN and all the national news channels reported that McVeigh's attorneys had no intent to file any motions to keep the federal building standing. They had ‘just reached agreement with the government,’ the reporters explained, to permit the building to be destroyed almost immediately."
34 Posted on 01/20/2000 15:31:35 PST by Boyd
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DeCamp on Colby:
"You've got to understand Bill Colby. Bill Colby believed, above and beyond everything, that the greatest thing that this country had, and the most *dangerous* thing this country had, was the CIA: the greatest thing for protecting us from "blah blah blah" and winning the Cold War and all that; the most dangerous thing because it had the ability and had developed the processes of operating outside the law. He was the one, if you'll remember, that exposed it. And he believed, more than anything else, that it wasn't *government* that would control things, it was the free press. I predict, within the next year or so, it will come out that he *also* is the one that engineered the release of the Pentagon Papers and made that possible. People used to say, "Your press members are owned by the CIA." He'd be the first to tell you, "Absolutely. We owned every one of them", or "almost every one of any value" would be his phrase. And we did control them."
35 Posted on 01/20/2000 15:37:53 PST by Boyd
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Colby is probably worth a few separate threads of his own, as I found in digging for info.
36 Posted on 01/20/2000 15:54:51 PST by NDCORUP
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Agreed. In doing an initial search, I also saw many references to the Army's own Satanic 'Kreskin'.
37 Posted on 01/20/2000 16:07:19 PST by Boyd
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INTRODUCTION
It is a little over four years since I, John DeCamp, wrote the words
you have just read. My closest friend and mentor, Bill Colby, like so many
others in the Franklin case, is dead; he was fished out of a river in front
of his home, under the most questionable of circumstances, in April 1996.
Was he killed because of his involvement in Franklin? I don't know. What
I do know, is that Bill Colby was the heart and soul of the Franklin investigation.
Although at a certain point he warned me against investigating the case
further, it was he who relentlessly pushed to publicly expose what had already
been discovered, when everyone else, including, at times, myself, wanted
to call it quits. Without him, this book would never have been written.
In the new, final chapter of this second edition, I tell much more about
my relationship to Bill Colby, who was, in my estimation, one of the greatest
patriots this country has seen, from the time that he served as our country's
Deputy Ambassador to South Vietnam (but, in reality, as CIA Station Chief),
and recruited a young combat infantry captain named John DeCamp to be one
of his chief assistants in Operation Phoenix, right through to his role
in trying to blow open the Franklin cover-up.
I published The Franklin Cover-Up, as much as an insurance policy for myself
and my family, as for any other purpose. Colby had pointed to the extreme
danger for a person to have secret knowledge about a situation, that others
who are affected want to keep out of the public's view. "Some people
will go to any lengths to make sure things stay secret," Colby had
often repeated to me, "which is why the CIA and the KGB sometimes find
their agents dead. Your best interest," he argued, "may well be
in publishing what you know and are able to prove, rather than keeping those
facts secret. Whether you ever sell a single book or not does not really
matter. Putting your information on the public record is what is important.
That way, there is no logical reason to harm you or your family, to suppress
some truth you have already documented. That is probably your real life
insurance policy in something like this Franklin situation," Colby
had advised me.
Now, four years later, without a single dollar spent in advertising or promotion,
over 50,000 copies of this book have been sold nationwide. I am convinced
that this is why I am alive today, although I did receive a warning in September
1996, through reliable sources, that I am targeted--"just like they
got Colby." There have also been innumerable attempts to disbar me.
Although I have thus far been able to defeat every one of these attempts,
they keep coming; to silence me through disbarment is, for those trying
to hide the truth on Franklin, the equivalent of assassinating me. So, the
battle continues, both in the Franklin case per se--about which I include
stunning new material which proves the truth of Part I of this book--and
in the new cases in which I have become involved. As a result of the first
publication of The Franklin Cover-Up, as an attorney, I have become involved
in some of the most famous legal cases now occurring in these United States,
from cases involving the militia movement, to the Oklahoma City bombing,
to the notorious Gordon Kahl shootout with U.S. Marshals, about which documentaries
and movies have been made, to appearances before the U.S. Senate on all
of these matters, including Ruby Ridge and Waco. I have appeared on all
of the national TV networks, and on many national shows, such as Nightline
with Ted Koppel, Good Morning America, CNN's Burden of Proof, America's
Most Wanted, and others. So, I say, as I dedicate this second edition of
The Franklin Cover-Up to my friend and mentor, William Colby: "Thanks,
Bill. You were right, so right it terrifies me. I told the truth, just as
you instructed. Now, as a result of the publication of the original Franklin
Cover-Up, I have ended up in situations, where, once again, the truth must
be told on some explosive new issues, whose consequences rival those of
Franklin, for the future of this country."
Thus, this new edition contains eight dramatic new chapters (and an epilogue):
The Franklin Investigation, and Cover-up, Continue; Four Years Later--Where
Are They Now?; Troy Boner Steps Forward; Drugs and the Monarch Project;
From Montana to Oklahoma City; The Oklahoma Bombing; The U.S. Justice Department
Murder of Gordon Kahl; and In Memoriam: Bill Colby. This concluding chapter
will reveal more about Colby's role in Franklin, and his very last instructions
to me, two weeks before his death. Finally, the last word on the Franklin
cover-up is delivered in the epilogue--not by me, but by the nineteenth-century
novelist Herman Melville. Besides his famous Moby Dick, Melville wrote short
stories. A high-ranking personage involved in the Franklin case, told me
that one of these stories contained the ultimate secret behind the Franklin
cover-up. He was right.
CHAPTER 18
THE FRANKLIN INVESTIGATION , AND COVER-UP, CONTINUE
When the first printing of what you have just read appeared in May 1992,
I was threatened with countless law suits by individuals named in the book.
I was told by their attorneys, from some of the most prominent law firms
in the state and in the country, that "We will destroy you in court."
As it turned out, although there have been numerous attempts to disbar me
only one law suit for libel and slander was ever launched as a direct result
of the book--and that was a suit I launched and won, as I will relate. My
victory in that case was but one of a series of what I call the "mini-miracles"--perhaps
a hundred or more unforeseen events since the book first hit the streets,
which prove the truth of The Franklin Cover-Up. I have chosen a small sampling
of these "mini-miracles" to recount here.
After this book appeared, attorneys for Franklin-related individuals repeatedly
appeared in the printed media (particularly in the Omaha World Herald) and
on TV to make statements such as: "This book is the most libelous and
slanderous book I have ever read. The individuals who have been slandered
in this book will definitely be filing legal actions to stop distribution
of this book and against Mr. John DeCamp personally. That is certain. This
book will be stopped and Mr. DeCamp will be proved to be a liar and made
to pay damages." When reporters who interviewed the lawyers or principals
named in the book contacted me for my response to their threats, I had one
standard answer:
"I agree with certain things these people and their attorneys attacking
me are saying. I agree that the things described in this book are horrible.
If anyone had said these things about me, I agree that I would sue them.
I believe if there is anything false in this book or if they believe I have
not told the truth in this book, that they should sue me. In fact, I welcome
their law suits, because that will help develop the truth. I personally
believe I have been most careful and cautious in the
way I have handled matters, and only written about those things I can absolutely
document."
So, what happened with those threats? Who sued whom? Who proved what?
The only major lawsuit for libel and slander arising from this book was
my suit against Atlantic Telecast, owner of a television station in Wilmington,
North Carolina, WECT (Channel 6). I charged that statements made on a WECT
news broadcast on November 12, 1992, attacking me and the book were false.
I demanded a retraction and public apology. The first response I received
was from WECT's station manager, who informed me that WECT had consulted
its attorneys, that the station had thoroughly investigated the matters
described in my book, and that WECT was not only not going to apologize,
but planned to repeat the attacks. WECT's attorney further advised me that
the station had investigated, in part, by talking to U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey
from Nebraska, who was running for president of the United States at the
time, and who had visited Wilmington, and met with representatives of the
TV station. Further investigation, he claimed, was conducted by talking
to the new Wilmington police chief, a man named Robert Wadman--the former
police chief of Omaha, Nebraska, who had come to Wilmington in the early
1990s!
After hearing this, I gave a simple demand to WECT: "Rest assured I
am ready to prove everything I wrote in my book. I hope you are ready and
able to prove your claims made on TV. I give you three weeks for further
investigation, and then I will move forward aggressively on my lawsuit against
you. At that time, I will seek not only an apology, but substantial monetary
damages." Just under three weeks from the date of my ultimatum, attorneys
from Atlantic Telecast contacted me and stated that they had done further
investigation and acknowledged that now they, not I, were in trouble. Shortly
thereafter, a settlement agreement was reached which stipulated: (1) WECT
TV would broadcast a retraction and public apology to me on its news broadcasts,
and would issue a press release to the same effect; (2) WECT would pay me
money damages and other financial benefits; (3) All other details of the
settlement, other than those stated above, would be kept confidential for
the benefit of the TV station. I accepted the settlement offer, and dismissed
my lawsuit. WECT lived up to its part of the settlement, and I have lived
up to mine. My lawsuit intersected a fierce political battle between Chief
Wadman, upon whom WECT had relied for its information, and his own police
department, particularly with an officer named Sgt. Robert Clatty. Sgt.
Clatty is the Wilmington Police Department's expert on satanic ritual abuse
of children, and is one of North Carolina's recognized experts as well,
with published works on the subject. Chief Wadman, on the other hand, claimed
that there was no such thing as satanic ritual abuse; he attempted to make
it impossible for Sgt. Clatty to carry out his work, and, at one point,
suspended him. The publicly waged war between Chief Wadman and his wide
array of defenders in Wilmington and across North Carolina, and Wadman'
s adversaries, led primarily by Officer Clatty, went as high as the State
Legislature. From 1992 until roughly mid-1994, it divided the city of Wilmington,
and even the state of North Carolina. The outcome of the war between Chief
Wadman and his own force was that in early July 1994, a secret meeting was
held with city officials and Wadman's attorney. On July 11, 1994, Wadman
resigned as police chief. Although city officials refused to comment on
what had transpired in the meeting, Wadman himself admitted in a television
interview later that month, that he had been ordered to resign from the
Wilmington Police Department.
In May 1992, shortly after the first edition of this book was published,
Monsignor Robert Hupp, who had been the head of Boys Town from the late
1970s through the decade of the 1980s--the critical time in question for
the Franklin case, contacted me and asked to have a meeting, at which he
specified that witnesses must be present. I anticipated that his purpose
was to attack me, and to deny what I had written about Boys Town. I was
completely wrong. With two witnesses present, Monsignor Hupp opened our
discussion with the simple statement: "John DeCamp, your book stated
the game; I hope I can help with some of the names." Monsignor Hupp
and I then entered into an in-depth discussion on the entire situation involving
Boys Town, Larry King, Peter Citron, the pedophile problem in general, and
the entire story of the Franklin cover-up. He verified piece after piece
of evidence of the Franklin story for me, and provided guidance on other
directions in which to look, to develop further proof of the children's
stories of abuse by this country's wealthy and powerful. When I asked Monsignor
Hupp how this ever could have happened at Boys Town, he looked at me and
told me, so apologetically, "I am like the wife who did not know, and
was the last to find out. And when I finally did suspect something and tried
to act, the Archbishop [Daniel Sheehan] elected to do nothing about it,
when I asked him to help. And then, when I came upon something horribly
evil, I found public officials and the Church would do nothing-apparently
terrified at the damage it would do to the Church and to the entire city
of Omaha," Monsignor Hupp said.
"What are you talking about?" I asked him. "Is there some
particular story or incident you are talking about in the book that you
have more information about? Please explain what you mean," I asked
the Monsignor. He then described an incident in 1985, in which a young boy
named Shattuck, who lived in Elkhorn, Nebraska, had been sexually abused
and then killed. The Monsignor told me that he was certain who had killed
the boy, a man he identified as a member of the Catholic clergy in the Omaha
Archdiocese. Monsignor Hupp provided precise detail which he said proved
beyond any doubt, that the particular individual he named was in fact, the
child's murderer. "The Church is plagued by these sexual abuse problems
across the country and by the devastating publicity the clergy abuse incidents
have caused," Monsignor Hupp explained. "The Church's reaction
to these sexual abuse problems is, in most cases, to immediately get the
clergy member involved out of the state and, if possible, out of the country,
and hopefully into treatment. I know that may not be right, but it is a
difficult situation
to deal with, and simply moving the priest or the brother out of the state
or country has been the traditional approach by the Church in America to
addressing the problems. In this case, where an innocent child was murdered
and where I know that a member of our clergy has done this, I felt I had
a moral obligation overriding all other things, to bring the situation to
the attention of the appropriate authorities. And I did," Hupp concluded.
The Monsignor then shocked me for the second time that day--and in a way
that brought back to me the horrible memories of the Franklin cover-up.
He explained that after he determined that the Catholic Archbishop of Omaha
was not going to take action on the case he then went to the FBI and to
the Omaha law enforcement authorities to provide complete details on the
child's murder.
So, what happened as a result of Monsignor Hupp's actions? Apparently, nothing.
Each year on the anniversary of the child's murder--now almost ten years--the
media talks about the case as still being "under investigation,"
and street rumors persist about the Catholic clergyman--the one Monsignor
Hupp believes killed the child--who was shipped out of state for alcohol
treatment right after the murder. In the aftermath of our meeting, Monsignor
Hupp ran into his own problems. In September 1992, the Monsignor advised
me that he was receiving all kinds of pressure and criticism and was, he
feared, being forced to leave Boys Town. Shortly after that discussion,
in a controversy that received national press attention on how resources
should be used at Boys Town, Monsignor Hupp was removed from his post. He
now lives quietly in a home in West Omaha, Nebraska. Monsignor Hupp has
shown incredible courage, as he has continued to provide me direction and
assistance in the Franklin investigation and related matters. Monsignor
Hupp is not some 13-year-old kid whom the cops say they cannot trust or
believe. On the contrary, he is one of America' s most famous and nationally
honored clergymen; the author of two best sellers; a former Presidential
Appointee as Special Ambassador to the United Nations; and the former head
of America's most famous child care institution (Boys Town). Monsignor Hupp
showed his courage yet again, when he repeated his charges a year later
to a British TV team making a documentary on the Franklin cover-up, entitled
Conspiracy of Silence.
In mid-1993, after The Franklin Cover-Up had been circulating for almost
a year, the British-based TV station, Yorkshire Television, sent a top-notch
team to Nebraska to launch its own investigation of the Franklin case. Yorkshire
had a contract with the Discovery Channel to produce a documentary on the
case for American television. They spent many months in Nebraska, and also
traveled this country from one end to the other, interviewing, filming,
and documenting
piece-by-piece the Franklin story as I had told it in the book. They spent
somewhere between a quarter-million and one-half million dollars investigating
the story, deploying probably a thousand times the resources and abilities
that I personally had. Over the year that I worked with them, I was amazed
at the team's ability to gather new documents and witnesses which kept opening
up new and frightening facts about Franklin. They were a crack team. In
the final weeks that they were in Nebraska, they expressed their certainty
that they would win awards for this documented horror story of government-sanctioned
drug-running involving children; government-sanctioned abuse of children;
and government protection of some of this country's most powerful businessmen
and politicians, who had been the chief actors in the Franklin story. Finally,
the big day came. Their documentary was to air nationwide on the Discovery
Channel on May 3, 1994. It was advertised in the TV Guide and in newspapers
for that day. But no one ever saw that program. At the last minute, and
without explanation, it was pulled from the air.
It was not shown then, and has never been broadcast anywhere since. I have
a copy of that program, which arrived anonymously in my mail in late 1995.
When I watched this pirated copy, I could see clearly why the program had
been suppressed. Conspiracy of Silence proved, beyond doubt, that the essential
points I had stressed in the book (and more) were all true. For instance,
the team had interviewed Troy Boner. Sometime after that grand jury was
over, Troy, guilt-stricken because of his lying over Gary Caradori's death,
contacted me and told the truth about what had happened. This is recorded
in a remarkable affidavit (see Chapter 20). The Yorkshire TV team spent
a small fortune to confirm Troy's charges. They flew Troy to Chicago and
paid for a lengthy polygraph (lie detector) test at the Keeler Polygraph
Institute. With the results of that test, the Yorkshire team was so convinced
that Troy was telling the truth, that they featured him in their documentary.
It was only in mid-1996, that I finally pieced together, through sources
I am not at liberty to disclose, what happened to stop the broadcast of
this documentary.
1. At the time the Yorkshire TV team and the Discovery Channel were doing
the documentary, they had no idea how high up the case would go into Government,
and; what major institutions and personalities in this country, would be
found to be linked to the Franklin story. Ultimately, the documentary focused
on several limited aspects documented in this book, and developed them much
more extensively than I ever had the resources or abilities to accomplish.
2. These areas which the documentary focused on, were: (a) the use and involvement
of Boys Town children and personalities in the Franklin Scandal, particularly
Peter Citron and Larry King's relationships to Boys Town; (b) the linkage
of Franklin to some of this country's top politicians in Washington, and
in the U.S. Congress, with particular attention on those who attended parties
held by Larry King at his Washington mansion on Embassy Row; (c) the impropriety
of these-politicians and businessmen and compromising of these people by
Larry King, through drugs and using children for pedophilia.
3. When the broadcast tape was sent to the United States, Customs officials
seized the documentary and held it up as being "pornographic material."
Attorneys for Discovery Channel and Yorkshire TV were able to get the documentary
released. Then, the lawyers went through the film for months, making this
or that change or deletion, so that the documentary ultimately advertised
to be shown on the Discovery Channel on May 3, 1994, would survive any claims
of libel or slander that any of the individuals identified in the documentary
might attempt to bring. The lawyers had cleared the documentary for broadcast.
4. During the several months that the documentary was being prepared and
advertised for showing, major legislation impacting the entire future of
the Cable TV industry was being debated on Capitol Hill. Legislation, which
the industry opposed, was under debate for placing controls on the industry
and the contents of what could be shown. Messages were delivered in no uncertain
terms from key politicians involved in the Cable TV battle, that if the
Conspiracy of Silence were
shown on the Discovery Channel as planned, then the industry would probably
lose the debate. An agreement was reached: Conspiracy of Silence was pulled,
and with no rights for sale or broadcast by any other program; Yorkshire
TV would be reimbursed for the costs of production, the Discovery Channel
itself would never be linked to the documentary; and copies of Conspiracy
in Silence would be destroyed. Not all copies were destroyed, however, as
I and some others
received anonymously in the mail a copy of the nearly-finished product.
I said in Chapter 12, "The Omaha Business Community": "As
essential to Franklin as [Harold] Andersen's fundraising and publicity were,
the credit union could not have functioned for a single day without the
complicity of Nebraska's largest bank, FirsTier.... Every dollar that went
into Franklin Credit Union--the missing $40 million was no exception-went
into its account #153-7-353 at FirsTier." In October 1994, evidence
released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proved exactly how
right I was. These FOIA documents showed that some of the same attorneys
who had threatened so loudly to sue me, together with the FirsTier Bank
with which they were associated, had reached a financial settlement with
the National Credit Union Association (NCUA), in which they agreed to pay
the NCUA $10 million in damages for their role in improprieties involving
Franklin. The attorneys had to come up with over $6 million, and First Tier
itself, over $3 million. Despite the fact that the FirsTier case was the
biggest malpractice settlement in the history of Nebraska, and despite the
fact that the settlement involved very prominent individuals--including
former Republican Governor Charlie Thone and attorney Jay Derr--the story
received almost no coverage in the press, that is, before the FOIA material
became public. Then the World Herald jumped in with a huge editorial in
October, 1994, entitled "Franklin Credit Union Crimes Unfairly Claim
New Victims." The World Herald wrote: "Some defendants, including
banks and a law firm, have agreed to pay more than $10 million to the NCUA
to settle the claims. They admitted no wrongdoing. They said they acted
to avoid prolonged litigation. Their position is understandable. Litigation
is expensive. Moreover, this particular litigation ran the risk of creating
a false impression.... The impression could have taken hold that a wide
circle of legal and financial advisers sat on the knowledge that King was
looting the credit union.... Such an impression would have been false."
There was, indeed, "a wide circle of legal and financial advisers"
in on the looting of Franklin, just as I had charged, and whom I name in
Chapter 12, "The Omaha Business Community." Finally, some of them,
at least, had to pay for it. Nor was this the only multi-million dollar
scam to be exposed in the wake of the first edition of this book.
In Chapter 6, I described another big money scheme that intersected the
Franklin case--the looting of the Commonwealth Savings Bank, in which I
filed a claim on behalf of the Commonwealth victims. To my surprise and
joy, I succeeded beyond all my expectations in this case--until a strained
interpretation of our state Constitution was put forward by Nebraska's Supreme
Court. First, I presented to the Claims Board the Commonwealth story exactly
as described in this book, but with even more extensive documentation. The
Claims Board agreed and reached a Settlement for some $16,000,000.00 to
be paid to the Commonwealth victims. But, the Legislature had to approve
this, as did the Governor. So, we took the matter of the settlement--with
me as attorney for the Claimants and victims--to the State Legislature.
Surprise--in a close but bitter battle, enough Senators stood up to acknowledge
the horrible acts that had occurred, and the intense suffering of the Commonwealth
victims that resulted. The settlement was approved. Next, we went to the
Governor, who signed the legislation for the settlement. Then, the matter
was taken to court by certain unnamed individuals (concerned citizens),
who claimed that they did not want their tax money used to pay these Commonwealth
victims. Nebraska has a unique section in its State Constitution which forbids
the state from using any tax dollars for purposes of extending the credit
of the state or granting a gift. The result: that which the Claims Board,
and the Legislature and the Governor all agreed the Commonwealth Savings
Bank victims were entitled to because of the failures of the Government
in Commonwealth, was taken away by the Supreme Court of the State of Nebraska.
The Court claimed that Nebraska's Constitution forbids paying the money
to the victims, because they were only victims of moral wrongdoing, rather
than legal wrongdoing. And John DeCamp, who would have become a multi-millionaire
out of the case because I had done it on a contingent fee basis, ended up
with nothing but the certain knowledge that I had established the truth
as I have written in this book with respect to Commonwealth Savings Bank
and certain of the personalities who are today so prominent on the national
scene-Senator Bobby Kerrey, for example.
Besides Yorkshire TV, the most notable among the electronic media which
became interested in the Franklin story was the TV program, America's Most
Wanted (AMW). In several episodes, AMW opened up a whole new dimension on
just how high up politically the story went and how wide it reached across
the country. For a while, I had great hopes. For example, AMW interviewed
Paul Bonacci in prison and broadcast his account of a host of specific details
about individuals, places, activities, kidnappings, etc., in which he said
he had participated.
To the shock of AMW (and sometimes, of myself), the incidents Paul Bonacci
described, when investigated by AMW, turned out to be exactly as Paul had
recounted. For instance, a young boy named "Jimmy" who had been
branded by pedophile perpetrators--like you would brand a steer. END
38 Posted on 01/20/2000 17:37:53 PST by Boyd
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Boyd, I'm going to make a separate post of this, your De Camp introduction, for the Archives. Thanks to you and Wallaby this is getting Cold, Hard Light Shone on it.
39 Posted on 01/20/2000 18:13:12 PST by NDCORUP
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Right. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
40 Posted on 01/20/2000 20:13:30 PST by MadAsHell
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Alisha Owen requests new trial The Associated Press State & Local Wire February 9, 2000, Wednesday, BC cycle OMAHA, Neb.
A central figure in the Franklin Credit Union scandal has asked for post-conviction relief.Alisha Owen, 31, filed a petition this week asking for a new trial, a dismissal of eight perjury counts, a new sentencing or other remedies.
Owen was convicted of perjury in 1991 for telling stories of sex parties involving her, other minors and prominent Omaha men.District Judge James D. Livingston of Grand Island will decide the case after attorneys submit written arguments.
Owen said she was represented by ineffective counsel throughout her case. The prosecution argued the conviction and sentence should stand.
Owen was convicted of perjury in 1991 for telling stories of sex parties involving her, other minors and prominent Omaha men. A judge sentenced her to nine to 15 years in prison. She remained free until her appeals were exhausted in 1996. She will be eligible for parole in September.
The only other person still serving a sentence related to Franklin's failure is Lawrence E. King Jr., the credit union's former manager. He began serving a 15-year term in 1991 for embezzlement and other financial crimes.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
41 Posted on 02/11/2000 22:02:47 PST by Wallaby (wallaby@altavista.net)
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Bmp.
42 Posted on 02/11/2000 22:15:43 PST by metalbird1
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Thanks for this news-hopefully justice will be served.
43 Posted on 02/12/2000 10:27:52 PST by jedediah smith
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Bttt.
44 Posted on 02/14/2000 02:19:38 PST by Uncle Bill
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Bttt
45 Posted on 07/28/2000 17:52:29 PDT by Uncle Bill
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Bttt
46 Posted on 07/28/2000 20:28:42 PDT by Uncle Bill
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