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THE FRANKLIN COVER-UP -- CHILD ABUSE, SATANISM, AND MURDER IN NEBRASKA |
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PART I: 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, traveling nationwide, 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 Bo nacci, 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. "S.O.S. America," a 1990 report from the Washington, D.C.-based Children's Defense 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 had 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 of 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 150 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-skeptical 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 U.S." 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." (Emphasis added.) 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 skeptical 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 La Vey, 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: "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 after 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 Defense 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 victims' 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 respected 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.
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