Document:The Franklin Cover-up

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The Franklin Cover-up

Foreword

"What do Ronald Reagan, President George Bush, former CIA Director William E Colby, Democratic presidential candidate Bob Kerrey, billionaire and second richest man in America and now head of Salomon Brothers - Warren Buffett, and Ronald Roskens, the current administrator of the Agency for International Development, all have in common?" I asked my close friend and adviser William Colby one day in 1991.

"I give up," former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Colby said. "What could that group have in common?"

"Three things," I replied, "all of them a burden at times for those who have to carry them. The three things are me (John DeCamp), a case called Franklin and a man named Larry King."

"Are you serious?" Colby asked.

"Dead serious," I responded. "And I hope that word ‘dead’ does not turn out to be a prophetic pronouncement, as it has for at least fifteen other Franklin-related personalities."

My statement to Bill Colby was not made lightly. Colby and his wife, Sally Shelton Colby, a United States ambassador under President Jimmy Carter, were at that very moment warning me to get away from the Franklin child abuse investigation, Larry King, and anybody else linked with Franklin, as quickly as possible for the sake of my own life and safety.

Sally and Bill had never talked to me like this before. They sat me down, made it clear that this was not one of our routine discussions about life and death and happiness, and emphasized to me the serious nature of what and whom I was dealing with.

"What you have to understand, John, is that sometimes there are forces and events too big, too powerful, with so much at state for other people or institutions, that you cannot do anything about them, not 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,"

Bill warned, with Sally nodding her head in affirmation.

When a caution of this nature comes from someone of the stature and experience of Bill or Sally Colby, you have to take it seriously, even if you do not want to. I had already had warnings enough, that unless I backed off from the Franklin situation, I might be looking at life from a pine box six feet underground.

Bill Colby had ample reason to know the seriousness of the Franklin case. In secret, Colby had been hired a few months earlier by the Nebraska Legislature’s investigative committee, to look into the single-engine plane crash, in which the Senate’s private investigator, Gary Caradori, and his son were killed.

"But Bill," I argued,

"somebody has to do something. The problem here is that our institutions of government have been corrupted. If there is a cover-up - and I now absolutely believe there is, even though originally I thought this whole Franklin story had to be a fantasy - then that cover-up can only take place with the co-operation and even the active assistance of some of our key institutions of government, from the courts to the cops, from the highest politicians, to the media representatives, to the wealthiest business leaders of our community and country.

"I can’t believe what you are telling me, Bill. Are you saying I should just lay it down, and walk away from this, when I know kids are being abused and killed; when I know our most respected citizens and business leaders are up to their eyebrows in drug dealing and official corruption; when every bone in my body tells me that evil is triumphing and everybody who is anybody is scared beanless to do something about it, for fear of one thing or another? How can any honest or intelligent person do this? If I, or someone like me, do not keep pursuing this, then who will? And if we quit now, then when, if ever, will the truth come out and something be done about this evil and this corruption?"

Bill could tell I was excited, frustrated and almost angry.

"Relax, just a moment, John," he said. "Relax, and I will tell you my own personal story. Maybe it will have some message for you.

"Last night I returned from Russia," Bill began.

Our conversation was taking place shortly before the now infamous August 19, 1991 coup attempt to throw out Gorbachov, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union as it had existed since 1917.

"Why was I in Russia?" Bill explained:

"For meetings in Moscow, to try to work with other world leaders and Russian leaders, privately and quietly, so that when and if a transition of power and a change of government and economic policy occur in Russia, they occur in such a way that it avoids a war.

"I was staying at a hotel located right near Red Square which, as you know, is the most guarded, sacred spot in the Soviet Union. It was about 1:00 in the morning. I could not sleep. The next morning I was to return to the United States. Not being able to sleep, I thought I would see if it was possible to walk around and get some exercise.

"I walked out of my room, expecting to be stopped by the guards or secret police. But nobody paid attention to me in the hallway. I walked on down into the hotel lobby. Nobody seemed to care.

"So, I walked out the door of the hotel, directly onto Red Square. Nobody paid attention. I stopped by Lenin’s tomb. I stood a few feet away from the entrance to the Kremlin.

"Then it struck me like a ton of bricks: It was over. Here was the head of the CIA, once hated and feared by the Soviet Union, wandering unwatched and unguarded around Red Square, after spending the previous week meeting with their leaders, trying to help them save themselves from economic collapse and political revolution, which might turn into a new totalitarian dictatorship. And nobody cared. The guards did not care who I was or what I was doing. The system had collapsed. It was over. Communism was dead. That was the happy part."

Bill went on, quietly,

"But I also realized, that this walk in Red Square was going to be the only victory parade I would have, to celebrate my forty-year battle for this. There were not going to be any parades down Madison Avenue with ticker tape. This walk in Red Square was the only victory parade I was going to have."

"So, what’s the message?" I asked. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"Sometimes," Bill said,

"There are forces too powerful for us to whip them individually, in the time frame that we would like. We have to keep working at our goal. But we have to be sensible enough, not to risk everything and get ourselves destroyed or killed in the process. That victory we seek may take much longer than we wanted, and come in ways we never anticipated.

"Maybe, just maybe, you have to have your own private victory parade. You maybe have to face the fact that you cannot ‘right’ all the ‘unrightable wrongs’ That there really are people too powerful, interests too big; that the rich and the powerful, even when doing evil, can and will succeed and you can do nothing about it at that moment.

"But," Bill continued:

"you do the possible, recognize the impossible, and if you are right - and you are, and we both know it - there will be a time when victory will come and the good will triumph over the evil. Only the when and where and how are usually unknown to us. the vest we might be able to do sometimes, is point out the truth and then step aside. that is where I think you are now. For your own safety and survival, step aside."

"Maybe I should start carrying a gun," I suggested.

Bill gave a cynical laugh and said, "No, that will only likely get you killed. If they are going to get you, a gun you are carrying is not going to stop anything. The best thing you can do for your personal safety is to tell your story, and make sure you have the national press interested in this and looking into it with some really good investigative reporters."

"Huh," I muttered. "Maybe the simplest thing for me to do is to try to tell the story."

"Maybe it is," Bill said. "Besides, I myself want to fully understand what you said at the beginning about what all those prominent individuals, from President Bush to Bob Kerrey, from myself to billionaire Warren Buffett, have in common."

"Maybe I’ll have to write a book, and tell you, won’t I Bill?"

Well, here it is.

Introduction

On June 21, 1991, 21-year-old Alisha Jahn Owen was pronounced guilty by a jury in Douglas County, Nebraska, on eight counts of felony perjury. On August 8, 1991, she was sentenced to serve nine to twenty-seven years in prison. Owen was indicted for telling a grand jury, before which she testified in 1990, that she was sexually abused as a juvenile, by a Nebraska district court judge, by the chief of police of the city of Omaha, by the manager of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, and others. Alisha Owen also witnessed, she said, the abuse of other children by figures in Nebraska’s political and financial establishment whom she named, among them the publisher of the state’s largest newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald. She testified that she was in a group of Nebraska children who functioned for years as illegal drug couriers, travelling nation-wide, for some of Nebraska’s wealthiest, most powerful and prominent businessmen.

Two grand juries, one local and one federal, had a mandate to consider these and other charges of child abuse connected with the Franklin Credit Union. They indicted the victim-witnesses for perjury instead!

"This is unprecedented, probably in the history of the United States," commented Dr Judianne Densen-Gerber, a lawyer, psychiatrist and nationally prominent specialist on child abuse, during her visit to Nebraska in December 1990. "If the children are not telling the truth, particularly if they have been abused, they need help, medical attention. You don’t throw them in jail!"

Both grand juries admitted that Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci, whose testimony extensively corroborated Owen’s, had been badly abused. But this was done, they concluded, by persons other than those the young people named. Bonacci, too, was indicted for perjury. Two other victim-witnesses, whose stories buttressed those of Owen and Bonacci, recanted under immense pressure. Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci refused to recant.

America is suffering an epidemic of child abuse. "SOS America", a 1990 report from the Washington DC-based Children’s Defence Fund (CDF), said that "a survey by the American Association for Protecting Children indicates that 2.2 million children were reported abused, neglected, or both in 1987 - a 225 percent increase since 1976, and a 48 percent increase in the previous five years." CDF and other estimates caution, however, that only one in every five cases of abuse and neglect gets reported. "The dimensions of the abuse are staggering," Dr A Nicholas-Groth, director of the sex offender program at the Connecticut Correctional Institute, told the New York Times in 1990, "If we saw these same numbers of children suddenly developing some kind of illness, we’d think we have a major epidemic on our hands."

Shocking as the numbers are, the nature of the crimes is more so, Ever more frequently, abuse involves what law enforcement officials refer to as "sadistic, ritualistic" features, or, to speak plainly, Satanism. What the victims of this type of abuse describe is so horrific, that parents, teachers, and even child welfare workers have great difficulty to grasp what they are being told. The mind recoils from such evil, inflicted on the most innocent of all people, children.

In recent months, news media around the country have been full of propaganda to the effect that children who report abuse are just telling what they fantasized, or stories fed to them by adults. As for satanic or ritualistic abuse, many newspapers declare that it does not even exist, as the New York Village Voice did in a June 1990 article, which attacked "the great ritualistic abuse hoax".

A banner-headline story in the Chicago Tribune on May 17, 1991, "A chilling tale of child abuse no one can prove," gave typical coverage of the debate over whether or not children are being abused by Satanists:

All nine children tell the same story, a grisly tale of being taken out of school and abused in a blue house. They name the same culprit, a school administrator who performs satanic rituals as part of his twisted routine. In the 14 months since the first child came forward, police said they have conducted 140 interviews and cannot substantiate the claims of the children, who range in age from 5 to 9. Prosecutor Stanley Levco is more blunt: He doesn’t believe them, and he plans to publicly clear the accused.

But the children’s enraged parents believe them. And a once-sceptical psychologist also thinks they are telling the truth.

All agree the children have been traumatized. The problem is, no one can prove how. "In all these cases, I don’t know of a single shred of credible, corroborating evidence," Levco said ....

The stories of the Evansville children reflect a recent, bizarre trend in child abuse cases across the country. As more children are encouraged to step forward and expose adults who hurt them, police are encountering more cases of child abuse accompanied by allegations of occult rituals.

The Tribune cited Kenneth Lanning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s expert on occult crime, on the virtual non-existence of ritualistic abuse. Lanning, who has publicized his opinion that "more people have been killed in the name of Jesus and Mohammed than in the name of Satan", said on this occasion, that there had "been only one criminal conviction stemming from charges of satanic ritual abuse in the US."

On April 28, 1991, the Omaha World-Herald carried a story along these lines, titled "Satanism ... Lots of Talk, Little Proof". It said that the problem was not an epidemic of satanic abuse, but rather:

"authorities say, America is witnessing an epidemic of concern over Satan and his minions, especially among adherents of fundamentalist Christianity. So-called ritual abuse is only part of it. But are these stories of incest and human sacrifice true? Many mental health experts think not. And at least two law enforcement officers, with the FBI and the San Francisco police, say they have looked into some of the claims and found nothing."

An embattled minority of law enforcement officials disagrees with Lanning of the FBI. Ted Gunderson, a 28-year FBI veteran, former special agent-in-charge of the Bureau’s Los Angeles Field Division, speaks from his personal knowledge of one of the most infamous recent cases involving ritual abuse, the McMartin pre-school case in California. After a 33-month trial, and despite voluminous evidence against them, school operators Peggy McMartin Buckey and her son, Raymond Buckey, were exonerated in January 1990 on 52 counts of molesting the children in their care, while the jury failed to reach a verdict on thirteen other counts against Raymond Buckey.

In a May 25, 1990 interview with Executive Intelligence Review, Gunderson said, "In the McMartin case, for example, before any criminal charges were filed against anyone, 460 complaints were filed with the Manhattan Beach police. Are we to believe that 460 families fed their children the same story of ritualistic sexual abuse, animal sacrifices, etc?" He stressed that the crimes were reported in an affluent suburban area, where residents are typically sceptical about organized child abuse or satanic conspiracies.

Gunderson commented on the effect of Lanning’s disclaimers:

"In my opinion, other than [Satanists active in the United States in the twentieth century] Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino, Ken Lanning is probably the most effective and foremost speaker for the satanic movement in this country, today or any time in the past."

Evidence from Gunderson’s investigations has convinced him that tens of thousands of children or young people disappear from their homes each year, and that many are ritually sacrificed. A decade ago, one estimate, printed in Reader’s Digest in July 1982, was that "approximately 100,000 children are unaccounted for" each year. That number sounds too high, but nobody knows what the true figure is, because the FBI does not keep count. Gunderson observes: {{QB "The FBI has an accurate count of the number of automobiles stolen every year. It knows the number of homicides, rapes, and robberies, but the FBI has no idea of the number of children who disappear every year. They simply do not ask for the statistics. Every month, every major police department in the United States files its uniform crime statistics with the FBI. It would be simple for the bureau to add one more column to the statistics and get a breakdown of every reported case of missing children - not to even mention children who are kidnapped for ritualistic purposes, and, in some cases, murdered. I am convinced that the FBI does not ask for these statistics because they do not want to see them. They would be confronted with an instant public outcry for action, because the figures would show a major social problem. That problem would demand action." }} The Franklin Credit Union scandal, centered in Omaha, opens a window into the hideous world of child abuse, and of organized, illegal drug peddling, patronized and protected by powerful figures in politics and business.

National media interest in the case flickered in 1988, when the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union was raided by federal agencies and shut down. Franklin’s manager was Lawrence E (Larry) King, Jr, then 44, a rising star in state and national Republican circles, an officer of the National Black Republican Council. King sang the national anthem at the GOP national conventions in 1984 and 1988. Nearly $40 million was missing from the coffers of the small, ostensibly community-oriented credit union. The financial scandal turned into something more, when it became known that children from Omaha and its surroundings said they had been flown from city to city, to be abused at parties held by Franklin’s officers and well-known Nebraskans, including nationally prominent Republican Party activists. "A Lurid, Mysterious Scandal Begins Taking Shape in Omaha," headlined the New York Times.

Three years later, people living outside eastern Nebraska are unlikely to be aware of the Franklin scandal, and those in the region have been told that the case is closed. Larry King is serving his jail term for misappropriation of funds, after a guilty plea. Law enforcement at the local, state and federal levels said there was no evidence of drug-peddling, organized child abuse, or satanic activity by King. The allegations of child abuse were "a carefully crafted hoax", according to one of the two grand juries that examined the affair. A chief witness, Owen, stands convicted of perjury.

The day of Alisha Owen’s conviction, 3,000 Nebraskans responded to a local radio station’s poll; 94% of them said they believed that she had been railroaded and that there was a cover-up.

What the public suspects, the careful investigator of the Franklin case confronts face to face. This case is far from closed.

This book will explore the substance of the Franklin case, much of which has never been revealed to the public until now. That means evidence concerning key players, which apparently was never brought before, or was ignored by, the grand juries. It means evidence gathered for the Nebraska Legislature’s special committee on the Franklin case, which found and verified the tracks of criminal activity, where law enforcement purported to see none. The legislative investigation, which began in November 1988, ended on January 9, 1991, when a new Legislature was sworn into office, and the investigative committee authorized by the previous Legislature was automatically terminated as required by the state constitution. The Legislature had the option to renew the investigation, but did not; many members knew or suspected what the stakes were, and were terrified.

I write about the unfolding of the Franklin case, its exposure and its cover-up,, as not only an eyewitness, but a participant in these events. I knew how high Larry King’s reach went; I was sitting in the front row, just fifteen feet from the main podium, at the 1984 and 1988 Republican national conventions, duly elected by the people of the State of Nebraska as a delegate, pledged, in the first instance, to Ronald Reagan and, in 1988, to George Bush.

I was there, as the story of the Franklin Credit Union and the child abuse broke in Nebraska. I wrote the "DeCamp memo" in 1990, which marked a new phase of the case. I will describe events in which I personally was involved. Most of these have never been made public, and it has pained me tremendously at times, when I knew that the Omaha World-Herald was saying something false or distorting a fact, that I had no forum or no legal right to respond, because I had to protect a client or honor a legal privilege.

As an attorney, furthermore, I have some specialization in cases of allegations by youngsters against adults in the area of child abuse. It has been my policy and belief, as it is now, that there is nothing worse than child abuse, with the possible exception of falsely accusing people of child abuse. Just in the past year, I have overturned two felony charges against individuals in rural Nebraska, who were charged with abusing their daughters, based on allegations from the daughters. I was convinced the girls were not telling the truth. I successfully proved this in both cases, and the girls broke down and told the whole story as to why they had lied.

In addition, I am the lawyer for the National Child Abuse Defence and Resource Center of Nebraska, which fights against false accusations of child abuse, and is made up of adults who have been falsely accused of child abuse. By contrast with these cases of fantasy, I can say without reservation that in one Franklin-related instance after another, there was sufficient evidence and corroboration available for anyone seeking it, to back up the victim’s tales. My own recollections and considered judgments are just a fraction of the huge record of the Franklin case.

The files of the Legislature’s main investigator, the late Gary Caradori, testify to the mass of leads law enforcement would not pursue. Documentary evidence presented in this book, never before made public, makes it possible to contrast the assurances of local and state officials that there was little or no Franklin-related abuse, with what those agencies had in their own files.

The chapters of this book dealing with Franklin are based, apart from my direct experience, strictly on documents available and documented facts. I do not claim to know the accuracy or veracity of every statement made by every witness or other person, recorded in these documents. I do claim, however, that the statements and the evidence were officially presented exactly as described. Readers can draw their own conclusions, as to what is or is not believable.

I have been very careful to present only material and documents which I can legally and properly, in my opinion, make available.

I also must state, that I received none of the Franklin committee documentation from the committee’s chairman, Senator Loran Schmit, other than what I was entitled to as attorney for Paul Bonacci. Some people inevitably will claim, as they did when I issued the DeCamp memo in January 1990, that Senator Schmit, whose private attorney I am, ‘leaked’ everything to me. I said then, and I say now, that nothing could be further from the truth.

Neither is anything whatsoever from grand jury documents - some of which I had access to - presented here, because I am not allowed to disclose this information. I wish I could. I wish everything about Franklin could be made public. Then, the public could judge even more thoroughly about what is true and what is false. I believe that sunshine and exposure of all facts from all agencies that have information about Franklin would establish the truth of the stories of drug abuse, child abuse, pedophilia, abuse of positions of public trust, cover-up by institutions of government, and, most tragic, involvement in this conduct and later cover-up by some of our most respect and wealthiest citizens.

I believe that the record must get out into the open, to the extent possible, and that the public has to share the information. Otherwise, truth becomes whatever those who control the institutions of government, and the press, say it is. Benjamin Franklin said, "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." For a textbook example of how this can be done, I would say: Come to Nebraska! Watch how when you totally control the press, when you own the press, you can make truth be whatever you want, you can make villains out of heroes, sinners out of saints, and vice versa.

In this book, therefore, much of the material has been kept in its documentary form - the words of investigators, state senators, victim-witnesses, parents, police, or FBI, as recorded in police documents, eyewitness reports, testimony to the Legislature, published interviews, and so on. I will allow these documents to speak for themselves.

Spelling and punctuation have been left as they appear in documents, except for minor punctuation changes in transcripts. Interpolations in quoted material are denoted by brackets []. When the name of a victim or other person is not his or her real name, it is marked with an asterisk * the first time it appears.

The Franklin case, which has dominated political life in Nebraska for three years, has chilling implications for the whole United States. The unfinished business of the Franklin investigation is a matter not only of justice for children in one state, but of the lives of untold numbers of children everywhere. Evidence developed from Franklin and King’s activities leads into drug-trafficking, money-laundering, pornography, child prostitution, and the kidnapping and sale of children in different parts of the United States, and abroad.

The shocking treatment of Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci by the courts in Nebraska is one give-away, of what a high stake has been wagered on suppressing the Franklin scandal. Members of the state Senate and investigators who sought to discover the truth of the matter, found that out earlier on, in a personal, violent manner.

When the first printing of what you have just read appeared in May 1992, I was threatened with countless lawsuits 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 lawsuit 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.

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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 libellous 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 lawsuits, 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 US Senator Bob Kerrey from Nebraska, who was running for president of the United States at the time, and who had visited Wilminton, 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.

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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.

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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 travelled 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 abuse of children; and government protection of some of this country’s most powerful businessmen and politicians, who had been the chief acts in the Franklin story.

Finally, the big day came. Their documentary was to air nation-wide 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:
   • 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;
   • the linkage of Franklin to some of this country’s top politicians in Washington, and in the US Congress, with particular attention on those who attended parties held by Larry King at his Washington mansion on Embassy Row;
   • 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 of 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.

When the Discovery Channel program, Conspiracy of Silence, was being prepared, the British investigative team insisted that they would not go forward on the program unless they had the on-camera personal interview, and verification of Bill Colby himself, that John DeCamp was reporting the truth with respect to Franklin, and with respect to this book, The Franklin Cover-Up. Colby went on camera, and thoroughly shocked the Yorkshire TV team in how strongly he came out, risking himself, to support me and my work on Franklin.

Bill also wrote a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, in which he strongly recommended that the Justice Department investigate this case from the standpoint I outlined in my book, a copy of which he enclosed with his letter. He got a formal response back from a Justice Department official, promising that the Department would indeed look into the case. But then, Bill had always backed me up, right from the earliest days, beginning in Vietnam.

Suspicious Deaths Tied to the Franklin Cover-Up

At least fifteen people who were close to the Franklin case have died under suspicious circumstances. Many of these deaths were violent, others were unexplained.

1. Bill Baker. He was a restaurant owner in Omaha, and a partner of Larry King in homosexual pornography operations. He was found shot in the back of the head.
2. Shaun Boner. Brother of victim-witness Troy Boner, he died of a gunshot wound from ‘Russian roulette’.
3. Gary Caradori. Chief investigator for the legislative Franklin Committee, Caradori told associates days before his death that he had information that would ‘blow this case wide open’. He died when his plane crashed on July 11, 1990.
4. Andrew ‘AJ’ Caradori died at the age of 8, in the plane crash with his father.
5. Newt Copple. A confidential informant for Caradori and his investigative firm, Copple was a key behind-the-scenes activist fighting the cover-up of the Franklin case. Son of Commonwealth Savings owner S E Copple, businessman in his own right, an ex-champion wrestler with no prior health problems and parents who lived into their late eighties and nineties, Copple suddenly ‘died in his sleep’ in March 1991, at the age of 70.
6. Clare Howard. The former secretary of Alan Baer, who arranged Baer’s pedophile trysts, Howard ‘died in her sleep’ in 1991.
7. Mike Lewis was a former care-giver for victim-witness Loretta Smith. He died of a ‘severe diabetic reaction’ at the age of 32.
8. Joe Malek, associate of Larry King and an owner of Peony Park, where homosexual galas were held. His death from gunshot was ruled a suicide.
9. Aaron Owen, the brother of victim-witness Alisha Owen. He was found hanged in his cell in Lincoln, Nebraska, hours before one of his sister’s court appearances.
10. Charlie Rogers. A reputed homosexual partner of Larry King, Rogers said that he feared for his life, in the days before his death. His head was blown off with a shotgun, in what was ruled a suicide.
11. Dan Ryan, an associate of Larry King. He was found strangled or suffocated in a car.
12. Bill Skoleski. An officer in the Omaha Police Department who was believed to be keeping a file on Larry King, he died of a heart attack.
13. Kathleen Sorenson. The foster parent for Nelly and Kimberly Webb after they fled the home of Larry King’s relatives, Jarrett and Barbara Webb, she was an outspoken activist against Satanism. Her death in a suspicious car crash is related in Chapter 15.
14. Curtis Tucker. An associate of Larry King, he fell or jumped out of the window of the Holiday Inn in Omaha.
15. Harmon Tucker. A school superintendent in Nebraska and Iowa, a reputed homosexual, his death had signs of Satanic ritual murder. He was found dead in Georgia, near the plantation which Harold Andersen and Nebraska-Iowa FBI chief Nicholas O’Hara used for hunting.

Who is John DeCamp, author of the "Franklin Cover-Up"?

Senator John DeCamp - Author, Attorney, Politician, Vietnam War Veteran, Businessman and VETERANS ADVOCATE is a native of Nebraska and a 1999 Candidate for the office of VFW National Judge Advocate General.

Senator DeCamp is a household name in Nebraska where Senator DeCamp served as Senator for 16 years (1971-1987) in Nebraska’s Unicameral Legislature.

In 1970, DeCamp made military history with his First of Its Kind entry onto the political scene. Captain john DeCamp in 1969 and 1970 was detailed by the Army in Vietnam to work directly for Ambassador William E Colby (DeCamp’s close friend who later became CIA director under Presidents Nixon and Ford) in developing the controversial Phoenix (Phung Hoang) program. DeCamp ran his successful Senate Campaign directly from Vietnam without ever setting foot in the United States. DeCamp ran his campaign by mail and controversial Press Releases from Vietnam where DeCamp spent 1969-1970 as a Combat Infantry Captain in the Mekong Delta.

DeCamp’s famous demand published nationally in the United States in early 1970 caught the ear of politicians and the World Press. "Let us win or get us out ...." was the campaign slogan for DeCamp’s successful campaign waged from the rice paddies of Vietnam, which made military history.

DeCamp and Nga Ma met in 1969 in Vietnam where Nga was a school girl and John an infantry captain. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Nga escaped to the United States where John DeCamp became her sponsor and eventually they married. The DeCamps have four children, Jennifer, Shanda, Tara and Johnny.

In 1975, as Saigon was collapsing and the North Vietnamese Communists were invading, Senator DeCamp again made military and political history. Senator DeCamp left his Senate Seat, boarded an airplane and returned to Vietnam where DeCamp - with help from the US State Department, US Ambassador Graham Martin and Vietnamese officials - successfully launched The Humanitarian Rescue of 2834 half-American, half-Vietnamese orphans in what has come to be known as "Operation Baby Lift". Through Senator John DeCamp’s efforts these abandoned children (Bue Doi, ‘Dust of Life’) from the American presence in Vietnam - who had ended up in orphanages, which orphanages were being abandoned as the North Vietnamese pushed South in their final push to capture Saigon - were brought to America where all were rapidly adopted and have become part of this country’s most noble act of the entire Vietnam War Era.

For this work, Senator DeCamp was honored and decorated by the President at the White House and named as one of the Eight Most Outstanding Vietnam War Veterans by the Veterans Support Group, ‘No Greater Love’.

Today, John DeCamp, Attorney and Author of the best seller ‘The Franklin Cover Up’, practises law in Lincoln, Nebraska, raises his children and is extremely active nationwide as Attorney in someof this country’s most famouse cases including the Militia cases in Montana, the Oklahoma Bombing, the Gordon Kahl case, Senate hearings on Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Veterans’ advocate DeCamp is one of two Nebraska attorneys licensed to practice before the US court of Veterans Appeals. He was named ‘Most Outstanding Young Man of Nebraska’ in 1976, by the state Jaycee’s, has served as Nebraska VFW Legal Advisor and lobbyist for the past 14 years, is the State Judge Advocate of AMVETS and wrote the By-Laws and articles establishing the AMVETS in Nebraska. He has severed on seven National VFW Committees (National Americanism and Community Activities 1993, National Veterans Employment and Training Committee 1995, 1996; National Legislative Committee 1989-1994, VFW National Committee on Veterans Service Resolutions 1991, 1997, 1998, National Security and Foreign Affairs 1990, 1998). DeCamp is the current 1998-99 Commander for the Nebraska Veterans’ Council serving all the veterans organizations in Nebraska.

DeCamp is a Life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans and a member of the American Legion.

DeCamp believes that: "...As the distance from our last major war increases, the interest of America and Politicians in our Veterans’ needs descreases; therefore, Vets must learn and live this rule: God helps those who help themselves. And I, John DeCamp, intend to use my psoition with the Veterans of Foreign wars of the US to protect and benefit Veterans by leading the efforts to help ourselves."