Transcription of Unaired Documentary on the Franklin Cover-up
In 1993, a film crew from Yorkshire Television in the U.K. led by producer Nick Grey and Director Tim Tate went to Omaha, Nebraska in the U.S.A. to make a documentary about an alleged pedophile ring.
Funded by the Discovery Channel in the U.S.A, their proposed film would first be broadcast in the U.K. and Ireland as part of Yorkshire Television’s documentary series: “First Tuesday.” A U.S. broadcast would follow.
In Omaha, the film crew discovered the machinations of a vast operation functioning throughout the country providing children to the wealthy and the political establishment for molestation, drug trafficking, and blackmail.
A year later in 1994, the documentary “Conspiracy of Silence” was to air in the U.K. but—during final editing with first broadcast approaching—the Discovery Channel inexplicably reimbursed Yorkshire Television the half million dollars it cost to make.
To this day, the documentary remains “unaired.” What follows is an unpolished yet coherent, rough cut of that documentary:
A Republican from the Midwest, Lawrence E. King, is serving a 15 year prison sentence for a multimillion dollar fraud. But financial crime is only half the story. This is the true story of Lawrence King. It is the story of an evil at the heart of America, of a cover-up at the highest level. One man is attempting to uncover the full story. John DeCamp is among the most highly decorated Vietnam veterans. A former Republican state senator in Lincoln Nebraska, he is now a lawyer fighting the evil of Lawrence King’s network.
John DeCamp: “It’s a web of intrigue that starts in our holy of holies, Boys Town Nebraska, one of the most respected institutions in the United States, and spreads out like a spider web to Washington, D.C., right up to the steps of the nation’s capitol, the steps of the White House, involves some of the most respected, and powerful, and richest businessmen in this United States of America, and the centerpiece of the entire web is the use of children for sex, and drug dealing, and drug couriers, the compromising to politicians, the compromising to businessmen, but worst of all the corruption of key institutions of government that have the duty and responsibility to make sure these things never happen.”
Made famous by an Oscar winning film, Boys Town Nebraska is America’s favorite children’s charity. It was founded in 1917 by Father Edward Flanagan.
Monsignor Hupp, former executive director, Boys Town: “Boys Town was started to be a home for orphans. It was after World War I. And since then, society has changed and the problems of the boys have changed. And so now, it’s a question of taking care of homeless, abandoned, neglected, abused boys, and now girls also.”
With cash reserves of five hundred million dollars, Boys Town is the richest square mile in the world. It has been granted the privileges of an incorporated town, a Catholic diocese, and a school district for five hundred boys and girls. One third of its annual income is raised from public donations solicited by begging letters and promotional videos.
Boy’s Town promotional video: “I’m Father Val Peter, caretaker of Father Flanagan’s dream and the executive director of Boys Town. ‘Does Boys Town really exist?’ people ask me. You bet it does.” “Located in the heartland of America, Boys Town youth have come from many backgrounds and locals. As they graduate, they shall seek new adventures and head for different places, but always, they shall carry with them the spirit of Boys Town. If you’d like to help Boys Town, send your tax deductible gift to Father Val Peter, Boys Town, Nebraska 68010.”
John DeCamp: “Boys Town for me was the first thing I ever heard of when you think of institutions that you respect. Believe it or not, I was there for a while when I was a young boy. Probably worldwide, there is no other institution other than Boys Town that has done so much good for so many children over such a long period of time so successfully. When an institution like that gets contaminated [for] purposes of abusing children instead of protecting children, then you’d better, if you’ve got any decency at all, do something about it or at least get it cleared up.”
John DeCamp lays the blame for the contamination of Boys Town on the one-time leader of the National Black Republican Council, Larry King.
John DeCamp: “Larry King was the fastest rising black star of the entire Republican Party of the United States during all of the 1980s. And he was also one of the most evil individuals in this country in terms of being a dealer of children, in terms of being a thief, forty million that they documented that he stole, and in terms of using, and compromising, and corrupting one after another politicians.”
The base for his network was a small people’s bank in Omaha, Nebraska, the Franklin Federal Credit Union. Larry King was its general manager.
Larry King: “Thank you. This is especially an exciting day for me.”
Noel Seltzer, former Franklin Credit Union executive: “Mr. King was a very charismatic person. When he came in to the Credit Union, he was brought in because the Credit Union was actually failing. He did everything to build the Credit Union.”
King courted the leaders of Omaha’s wealthy business district. Banks, industry, and charities placed millions of dollars in King’s hands. From 1979, Larry King developed close commercial ties to Boys Town, and Boys Town youngsters were sent to work for his companies.
Noel Seltzer, former Franklin Credit Union executive: “Boys Town had quite a few accounts at Franklin Credit Union. Those were considered very valuable accounts. They were handled exclusively by the bookkeeping department. But on the average of once a month or once every two months, we always seemed to incorporate a person from Boys Town.”
King used Boys Town as a source for young boys for his business, and for sex and drug orgies. Paul Bonacci was a victim of King’s abuse. He was also sent by King to lure Boys Town youngsters off campus.
Paul Bonacci: “We used to just drive around, go up toward the home … scavenger hunts, picking up some of the kids, you know, just kind of win their confidence, become friends with them for a while, start inviting them to the parties. The kids were ten years old or older.”
In 1986, King’s plundering of Boys Town by staff to the chief executive, Father Val Peter. Subsequent testimony proves that he carried out his own investigation but that King’s victims refused to talk.
Carol Stitt, Director, foster care review board: “Nebraska has a very clear statute that child abuse allegations should be reported to authorities. They shouldn’t be reported to the principal of a school, director of a facility, they should be reported directly to either Child Protective Services or law enforcement. An internal investigation at Boys Town would have no status. I mean, in other words, that evidence that was collected may be something that could augment, but it certainly could not take the place of, an investigation, a criminal investigation.”
Interviewer: “Could you understand why a very detailed report from a social worker employed at Boys Town identifying children and identifying their alleged abuses never saw the light of day, nothing happened with that?”
Monsignor Hupp, former executive director, Boys Town: “No, I couldn’t understand that because had I known that, I wouldn’t put up with that, but is that—something like that happened? I don’t know. In retrospect, I regret having any association with Larry King. Had I known it at the time, it would never have happened.”
Despite the investigation, Larry King remained free to feed his pedophilic parties with child victims. But in 1988, a routine review brought the Boys Town cases to the attention of Nebraska’s state foster care review board.
Carol Stitt: “In the information presented to the foster care review board, either via the telephone reports, the personal reports, or the reports we reviewed, Larry King’s name was consistently present as someone that the youth were making allegations against. I turned that information over to authorities and nothing happened. I would say we handed over at least a foot high amount of material. Generally speaking, the allegations were ignored.”
Omaha police now accept that Larry King may have been abusing children, but it’s most senior detective claims that he never received any evidence.
Police Detective: “It is certainly possible that Mr. King was involved in illegal acts with children. If there was sufficient evidence of those types of allegations he would have been prosecuted by the county’s attorney’s office.”
Carol Stitt: “For me it was very clear that the case was not investigated, not pursued, because of the alleged perpetrators.”
Those perpetrators named by the children formed a ring of rich and powerful pedophiles in Omaha, men from industry, politics, the media, even the police. Besides Larry King, ringleaders were department store billionaire Alan Baer, and the celebrity columnist of the Omaha World Herald newspaper, Peter Citron. With the judicial system apparently paralyzed, Larry King’s business and political empire grew. He courted the Republican Party nationally and plundered Franklin’s accounts to finance a luxury lifestyle of limousines, private planes and palatial homes, three in Omaha and one in Washington, D.C. Franklin’s records show he spent ten million on jewelry, flowers, and private planes. And his lavish spending bought him a charmed life.
John DeCamp: “Larry King was constantly heralded, cheered, applauded in the news media as the great businessman that’s helping the poor people, the black community of Omaha.”
But King’s extravagance attracted the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. As a result, on April 11, 1988, the Franklin Credit Union was raided and closed by the FBI. King was arrested and a federal investigation showed he’d stolen forty million dollars from Franklin. But the FBI’s inquiries were secret and evidence of King’s sex ring was quickly covered up.
In November 1988, Nebraska’s state government set up a parallel investigation into the Franklin financial collapse. A legislative committee was formed. Its chairman was the Republican head of Nebraska’s banking committee, corn famer and state senator Loran Schmit. But the money trail led quickly to the original allegations of child abuse, and almost immediately, anonymous threats began.
Loran Schmit, senator of Nebraska: “I received a phone call on the floor of the legislature. The caller didn’t identify himself, but he said, ‘Loran, you do not want to have an investigation of the Franklin Federal Credit Union.’ And I asked who I was speaking to and they said, ‘that doesn’t matter, but you shouldn’t have that investigation.’ And I said, ‘Well, why not,’ and he said, ‘It will reach to the highest levels of the Republican Party, and we’re both good Republicans.’”
Carol Stitt: “The night before we testified before the legislative committee, I did receive a phone call at home that said, ‘If you speak, you won’t live to regret it.’”
Undeterred, Schmit’s committee hired professional investigators, Karen Ormiston and Gary Caradori.
Senator Loran Schmit: “When we hired Mr. Caradori, I was very specific to him. I said, ‘We do not want you to bring to the committee rumors, innuendos, nothing that cannot be backed up with facts.’ I said, ‘Bring to the committee that which we can take to the prosecutor.’”
On the streets of Omaha, Gary Caradori and Karen Ormiston found new victims of King’s pedophile network. Every new youngster told the same story as those from Boys Town, covered up three years earlier.
Karen Ormiston (private investigator): “They were telling us about prominent people in Omaha and elsewhere that were abusing children at parties.”
Senator Loran Schmit: “The prominent citizens’ names that originally came up were of concern to me because I knew many of those individuals, and I, very frankly, was shocked to have those names show up on the list.”
Ormiston and Carradori recorded their new witnesses on video tape. A victim of abuse since he was eight, Paul Bonacci was present at many of Larry King’s sex parties.
[Recorded Interview by private investigator] Gary Caradori: “Who were some of these people that would come to these parties?”
Paul Bonacci: “Larry King.” [other names inaudible]
Media personality Peter Citron procured some of his victims from Boys Town.
Bonacci: “The kids he liked were mainly around the age of probably about eight and thirteen. It was mainly fondling and oral sex with them. He did have some anal sex, but he usually did that with the older kids.”
But Citron’s abuse of Paul Bonacci involved ever more sadistic parties.
Bonacci: “He would tie me up and have some of the kids perform sex on me. They would burn me with cigarettes.”
Caradori: “Whenever you were tied up, was there anybody else present other than you, Peter Citron and Larry King?”
Bonacci: “Yes. It was Alan Baer sometimes, Larry King, Paul Morino, … also Troy Boner. Troy was there.”
Troy Boner was seventeen when he was introduced to the pedophile parties by Alan Baer.
Troy Boner: “He lifted me up, moved me over to the bed, said ‘Let’s get on the bed,’ … as they say, sixty-nine position.”
Troy Boner: “Alan Baer was a sick f___. He didn’t care. He wanted sex, nasty, you know, I don’t even know if you can call it sex. And he’d take it any way he could get it, pay for it, he liked to, but if he had to take it by force, he would. Larry King was the same kind of sick f___ Alan Baer was, except Larry Kind was more violent, more sure of himself. I would see him f___ a ten year old boy in the a__ until he bled. He’d push him down, and then go out and meet with decent people.”
King would also provide underage girls for abuse. Alisha Owen was fifteen when she attended her first party.
Alisha Owen: “I met some guys there that were from Boys Town. It was at that party that I met Larry King. At the time that I met Larry King, I did not know he was Larry King. It was the first time I’d ever met him.”
Alan Baer and Larry King frequently hosted the child sex parties in penthouse apartments at the Twin Towers luxury block.
Owen: “A lot of it was me handcuffed with my hands behind my head and my feet tied, and them doing different things. … Most of the time, Larry King took pictures quite a bit during that time.”
Ormiston: “We were appalled. Appalled. It was incredible what these kids went through, I think.”
Boner: “I was shocked when I walked in. There was a kid, I would say about fifteen years old out in the middle of the room. I was standing in front of him. He was bent over and the other guy was like reaching under him, … while a guy who Jeff told me was a police officer was shoving beads up his rectum.
Boner: “Everything from just touching to a huge squash stuck into you, in your a__, heat, hot things poked at you and stuck in you. I got those scars in my arm one night at a party where Larry King was. He had brought somebody in—I don’t remember clearly who it was. Wanted to see how strong of men we were or something, and have us push our arms together. King has these same scars. You push them tight together and then you light cigarettes, and as soon as they get burning, you just drop them down between your arms and you just let it burn. They made us stand there naked and touch each other by holding our arms together and let it burn. It’s on film someplace. I mean they filmed it burning.”
Owen: “And those of us that didn’t like to be involved, and didn’t want to be involved, were threatened.”
Interviewer: “And who would do these threatening remarks?”
Owen: “Larry King. When they threatened, ‘I can go find somebody that will kill you or that will kill your family,’ you didn’t tell anybody.”
Boner: “Larry King was also here. He came in and we drank and did cocaine. I didn’t do much. He turned me on to it—Larry King did…. He didn’t like me because I would get high on drugs and I would question him about it. How can you do this? Once I asked him, he wanted me to s___ on him. And I did, gladly. I even said to him, ‘You stupid f_____.’ You’re paying me, how can you get into that? I got beat up by it. I came home here a lot of times beat the s__ for misspeaking, my tongue so to speak and just telling him how I felt sometimes.”
Bonacci: “Drugs was a strong part of how they got control of some of the kids, because that’s what some of the kids were there to get. They would do the sexual acts and then be provided with cocaine or whatever type of drug they wanted.”
Boner: “Heroin was my drug of choice. Till this day, I remain an addict, you know.”
Ormiston: “Larry King was, I would say, the center of transporting the children around the country. The airplanes were usually leased in his name. They were paid for by Larry King.”
Owen: “We met them in Pasadena. Larry King was there. There was three boys that I had seen at one of the receptions. I was almost positive they were Boys Town boys, almost positive….They were young.”
Senator Schmit: “Boys Town came up frequently during the investigation. But we found it very difficult to get information on Boys Town. I was not able to get any information on my visit there and Mr. Caradori could not get information either.”
Four years on, Boys Town remains unwilling to discuss its involvement with Larry King. We asked for an interview with chief executive Father Val Peter. But Boys Town’s public affairs officer refused: “I would have to give you a flat no. I’m just going to tell you at this point that we will not participate with you. We have no interest in talking to you folks. It is something we don’t even care to delve into.”
[An in-person visit to the office of Val Peter by interviewer] “We’re here because we have to give Father Val Peter and Boys Town every opportunity to talk to us about the very serious allegations.“
Boys Town Employee: “Turn your recorder off. Please step outside.”
Interviewer: “Why is it Boys Town is unwilling to discuss your relationship with Larry King?
Boys Town Employee: “We don’t have a relationship with Larry King.”
Interviewer: “I’m afraid papers that we possess show that Boys Town had a relationship with Larry King.”
Boys Town Employee: “I suggest you be very careful about what you report.”
By the spring of 1989, so serious were the child abuse allegations by the Franklin committee, that its chairman, Senator Loran Schmit, sought the advice of his lawyer, John DeCamp. He told Schmit to turn over all the evidence to the FBI. Immediately, the videotaped testimony was leaked to a hostile media.
Ormiston: “The media immediately started discrediting the witnesses. The witnesses came across in the media, in the Omaha World Herald especially, as the criminals.”
Carol Stitt: “The last three victim witnesses were demolished by the press, particularly the Omaha World Herald. The paper never looked for information that would support any of the allegations. The whole purpose of the allegations was to destroy any credibility these youths may have.”
Bonacci: “I’ve heard that people said that Caradori coached me and that he told me what to say. But the fact was that I didn’t meet Gary Caradori until way after I’d already talked to the Omaha police about the abuse and had named all the same people. They didn’t ask me very much about Larry King or even Alan Baer at all. They treated the allegations I made about the people who abused me almost like a joke.”
Police Detective: “The information did not come our way. It was given as I said to the FBI and Nebraska State Patrol. They conducted their own investigations of the information. The stories were of such significance that the investigators first wanted to prove the accuracy of the stories. As they set about the investigation of the three, initially three, then a fourth person that were telling the stories, as the investigation developed, it became obvious to investigators that the information was not accurate, that in fact, it was an entire conspiracy of allegations, none of which had any truth to them.”
Senator Schmit: “I was very disappointed with the way the FBI and law enforcement treated the victims. They in fact, turned them into the offenders, so to speak. And instead of taking the evidence that was delivered to them by the victims, and interrogating the persons who the victims identified, they seemed to bear down and try to get the victims to change their story.”
Troy Boner was brought in for questioning by the FBI.
Boner: “The FBI’s attitude was just, no, these kinds of things don’t happen. From the first interview when I went and realized they don’t believe a f___in’ thing I’m saying you know. I mean, they were just appalled, but I realized what that look in their eye was back then. It was fear. It was fear, you know. I mean, I had witnessed first-hand things that would, you know, destroy this city, people, position. It’s not going to be believed, they said. It will not be believed. You will be found guilty of perjury. I mean, they weren’t telling me maybe. They were saying there’s no way. You go on with this story—you’re going to jail. I mean that was said to me direct. Just out of fear, I came to recant the story, out of fear.”
Troy Boner agreed to recant his video-taped testimony and state instead that his evidence had been invented. Next, the FBI used Troy in an attempt to trap Alisha Owen into recanting her evidence about Larry King’s ring of powerful pedophiles. The phone call, recorded by the FBI on March the 9, 1990, proves conclusive evidence for John DeCamp.
[Phone recording] “This is Special Agent Michael F. Mott. Following will be a consensually recorded telephone call between Troy Boner and Alisha Owen.”
Owen: “Hello.”
Boner: “Hello.”
Owen: “Hi.”
Boner: “Hey, what’s going on?”
Owen: “I’d like to ask you that.”
Boner: “Talk to me.”
Owen: “No, you talk to me. I want to know why you’re lying. Why are you lying?”
Boner: “What are you talking about?
Owen: “That’s what I’m asking you.”
Boner: “You’re calling me why I’m lying?”
Owen: “Yeah.”
Boner: “You concocted this whole thing, Alisha.”
Owen: “You’re full of s___. You’re full of s___. Who do you have listening on this line?”
Boner: “I have nobody listening to me! I’m listening to you and I’m hoping you’d give me some f___in’ answers.”
Owen: “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know what games you’re playing.”
Boner: “I’m not trying to play a game.”
Owen: “And I don’t know who you have on this phone call….”
Troy: “You are being stupid, Alisha. I am not going to go to jail for you, and that is what is going to happen.”
Alisha: “Why would you go to jail? Jail for telling the truth?”
Troy: “No, jail for lying.”
Alisha: “What have you lied about?”
Troy: “I haven’t lied.”
Alisha: “Ok, but then why are…?”
Troy: “Listen—shut up! Listen to me. You are not out here being talked to every day. The pressure is kind of hard.”
DeCamp: “You literally have to have bricks for brains to take on the FBI in this country and that is exactly what you would have to do to do this properly. THEY NOW, IN MY OPINION, IN MY INVESTIGATION, ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF THE COVER-UP.”
We asked the FBI for an interview about its investigation of the Franklin Scandal.
FBI Agent: “Murray Homequest for the FBI here – we feel it would be inappropriate for us to comment. We worked this with the Omaha police department. We just don’t feel it would be appropriate for us to make comments.”
As Gary Caradori and Karen Ormiston sought out new witnesses on the streets of Omaha, they found themselves under constant threat.
Karen Ormiston: “Gary was threatened several times. His vehicles were tampered with. I would think whoever tampered with them, it was a scare tactic because it was so obvious that they were being tampered with.”
Gary Caradori’s brother: “Gary got– there is one piece of evidence I know he got that he even said he got one step ahead of them this time. He told us about this book, it was like addresses, telephone numbers, names. He said if they knew he had it, they’d kill him.”
On July 11, 1990 Gary Caradori and his 8 year old son AJ were flying home from Chicago. They had watched the all-stars baseball game and Caradori had been pursuing new leads.
[Newsreel] “Investigator from the National transportation Safety Board are in Harold Cameron’s Corn field trying to determine what caused this private plane to crash killing its 2 occupants.”
The bodies of Gary Caradori and 8 year old AJ were found in the wreckage.
[Newsreel] “National transportation Safety Board investigators say wreckage from the crash is apparently strewn over a 3/4 to 1 mile long stretch in this field. The fact that this wreckage is scattered over a large area certainly demonstrates that it did break up in flight. The exact mechanism of the breakup yet is still unknown.”
The Federal Investigation was never able to discover what tore the plane apart.
Karen Ormiston: “There are things missing from the plane. His brief case is missing. Again we will never know what all was missing because I don’t know what he had with him. I don’t know what he did in Chicago. He may have had information that he was coming back with.”
Within 24 hours of the tragedy, FBI agents impounded all records of the investigation. Gary’s widow, Sandie, is still unable to come to terms with her loss.
Sandie Caradori: “As a mother, I don’t want to ever think that somebody murdered my child, let alone my husband, but I think if you’d ever talk to any parent, be it a mother or father that has ever lost a child, I mean the worst thing that you can think of is that somebody would want to murder a child.”
Gary Caradori’s brother: “I really feel that somebody killed my brother. And inside me, I know somebody killed by brother. If somebody can help us out or… somebody knows something. May God help those who did that to him and his family.”
Gary Caradori’s death pricked Troy Boner’s conscience. He promised Sandie that he would recant his recantation and tell the truth.
Troy: “I wanted to set the record straight. I was going to do it and would, you know, the truth would come out, and somebody would be held accountable for his death. And then at the funeral I had seen FBI guys, you know, and they looked at me. You know, I was supposed to meet Senator Labedz? and Schmit for lunch after the funeral, and that is when I decided, I told my mom, ‘You know, we’re not going to do the lunch, we are going to hightail it out of Lincoln now.’”
Karen Ormistan: “The effect of Gary’s crash on the investigation, I think, in effect, put an end to anybody else coming forward with sensitive information like this.”
Carol Stitt: “That is when I was finished, because I figured out if they murdered Gary and his son, there was nothing that would stop them, there was no piece of paper, there was nothing we could come up with that was going to get anything done.”
Under pressure from the FBI, Troy Boner agreed to tell a Douglas County Grand Jury investigating Larry King that he and Alisha Owen had concocted the entire child abuse story on payment of $500.00 bond. Troy Boner was to be the star witness against Alisha Owen but he grew uneasy about maintaining what he claims were the lies fed to him by the FBI. But when his brother Shawn died in and inexplicable gun accident, Troy and his family were convinced that he was sent a warning message.
Troy: “You know, they killed him just flat outright, somehow, professionally, made something happen, you know, to shut me up.”
Troy’s mother: “The purpose of Shawn’s death—to instill fear, and it worked.”
Troy: “Do I feel guilty about my brother? Yes, I do. That’s where all this is coming from. This is where the energy is coming from that I’m getting to do this. It’s for him because it should have been me there instead of him. Really. I mean, I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad, but I mean he was brilliant and innocent. You know, it should have been me. He had so much to give, I have taken so much. You know, it should have been the other way around.”
Troy’s mom, Loni Boner: “I can’t explain to you what it feels like to lose a child. But when you see the pain your kids have because of that, it’s much worse [crying]. I can’t do anything for them. I can’t take that pain away for them.”
Senator Loran Schmit’s legislative committee issued a report denouncing the grand jury. Two months later, it was disbanded leaving Schmit a broke man.
Senator Schmit: “The message was not lost on most politicians in Nebraska. I think the message delivered was if any of the committee ever tries to conduct a thorough investigation again, the same thing will happen. It has shaken my faith in the institutions of government. I used to be a firm believer that the system would work and that people who did things wrong would be punished. And we discovered victims who claim to have been abused and who the grand jury acknowledged had been abused, but they did not try to find out who had abused those individuals. Instead, they convicted Alisha Owen of perjury and that’s from my point of view.”
In July 1991, Alisha Owen was convicted of perjury. Her sentence was between 9 and 25 years.
DeCamp: “I can’t find a case in the history of this country where some kid got sentenced to 25 or 30 years in prison for something like this. If you were going to pick a—what I call a tell-tale sign, something that says something’s fishy about the whole thing—It was in the sentencing itself. For some reason they had to send a signal to every kid who was a potential witness (my opinion again) a signal so loud and clear: ‘If you dare to come forward, if you dare to talk, watch what happens.’”
Three months later, Larry King was jailed for the 40 million dollar fraud. He was given a 15 year sentence – 10 years less than Alisha Owen. John DeCamp is now the only man fighting to help Larry King’s victims. He has become the lawyer for Paul Bonacci and Alisha Owen.
DeCamp: “I live in Nebraska. Hell, I was born here, raised here, I have 4 kids growing up here. Like it or not, it’s my heritage, you know? If it’s a dirty cesspool that I’ve got to live in or look back on that I left, that ain’t good. The real cost, if I were going to say, to my family has been the fear and intimidation that has put some of the kids—a couple of the kids are really frightened and really had some sleeping problems over it—you know, hear this or that. That‘s been the real concern I’ve had.
In the face of mysterious threats, John has turned for advice to his friend and onetime boss, former head of the CIA, Bill Colby.
DeCamp: “Bill Colby told me, better than anything, the one thing that the bad people can’t afford is publicity, and knocking you off right now or doing something obvious to one of your kids would bring them more trouble than it’s worth.”
Bill Colby: “I said you have to consider the possibility of some danger to not only your reputation, but to your person. I mean, people do react rather violently to some kinds of charges, or particularly if they’re true, there is more apt to be a negative reaction than if they’re false. If they’re false charges, than they can be reacted to in a normal way, by a libel suit or whatever. But if there’s truth in it, there can be a danger in that situation. We’ve seen that happen in other cases.”
John DeCamp has arranged to meet Troy Boner, the young man he sees as the key to the cover-up.
DeCamp: “He is in great danger. The reason is he carries the secret, so to speak. He served his purpose for the FBI and others by committing the lies that put the seal on the cover-up. His greatest safety probably lies in doing exactly what he knows he should do—that is exposing the whole thing, taking one final last chance and telling the truth.
Troy: “My fears are that, you know, I am not going to be believed again. It is just going to be a whole other kind of exploitation like it was last time, you know. And afraid that that’s going to happen, or that I might end up dead or a loved one might end up dead again. I want this to go forward and have something done so that all those other kids who a lot more worse things have happened to can come forward and see that action can be taken because there are a lot of other kids out there that things happen to them, a lot worse that happened to me.”
DeCamp: “You have to, if you want to protect yourself and your life and your family’s life both now and particularly in the future, is to use the institutions of government that have been set up to protect you, and make them work. That means you go into Federal court, you go after the people that have done this cover-up, and you expose it so there is no longer any percentage on their part in eliminating you because the secret is out.”
Troy: “That’s why we’re here today, to let it out.”
DeCamp: “I have no doubt that he is now telling the truth number one, and number two that he originally told the truth. Potentially they could decide to charge him with perjury because now he is telling that ‘They forced me to lie. I did lie at Alisha’s trial. I did lie before the grand jury. I did it because the authorities were forcing me to do it. And I was scared for my family, my brother had been killed when I tried to back out the one time.’ Potentially they could charge him with perjury this time.”
Alisha Owen is out of prison and on bail while DeCamp appeals against her perjury conviction. As he prepares for a court hearing new evidence of the cover-up emerges, and once again, it involves Troy Boner’s evidence.
Alisha: “The tapes that were shown to the Grand jury had been edited Everything that matched Troy’s statement…”
John DeCamp: “Was shown them.”
Alisha Owen: “That matched mine, were edited out. And I think maybe one of the things we want to do is show to the judge specifically how, where these little five minute segments of, ‘Look, this tape says this,’ and show him, ‘It isn’t in this tape, and this is the tape the grand jury saw.’”
John DeCamp: “I’m going to attempt to get these tapes, and we’ll see what happens next.”
But to obtain the evidence DeCamp must approach some of the very officials he believes were involved in the cover up, the county attorneys’ office which ran the grand jury.
DeCamp: “In the good old Alisha Owen case, 127194, I’m trying to get the evidence, the tapes and the transcripts of Troy and Danny, Troy Boner.”
Office Clerk: “That might be downstairs. We had that up here once.”
DeCamp: “Yeah—I think there’s two tapes, there should be, because I understand, and the transcript of them. But if I could get them, I could start reviewing them and figure out maybe a little bit on what’s happening on some things.”
Office Clerk: “Check with the county attorneys, they have all the bills up there. Robert…”
DeCamp: “Let me guess, Robert Sigler has them.”
Robert Sigler is the prosecuting attorney fighting to send Alisha Owen back to prison. After lengthy negotiations, DeCamp emerges with the tapes the grand jury never saw.
[Recorded video of Troy Boner’s interview by Priv. investigator, Gary Caradori]
Troy Boner: “I went with $4,000, about $4,000 of cocaine.”
Gary Caradori: “Okay, and what airline?”
Troy Boner: “I flew out of American.”
Gary Caradori: “Okay, and did you go direct?”
Troy Boner: “No, there was a stopover in Van Bu… No, there was a stopover in Dallas, Fort Worth.”
Caradori: “So you went from where to where to where?”
Troy Boner: “I went from Omaha to Dallas, Fort Worth, like an hour and then—a big, big plane from Dallas to Los Angeles.”
Caradori: “Alright, did anybody go with you?”
Troy Boner: “Alisha Owen.”
DeCamp: “If these indeed were left out of the grand jury proceedings, then I am totally shocked and angry beyond words. Here it is, so to speak, the smoking gun, that they can go out and verify—the corroboration. In other words, the linkage to King that was denied. Cover-up, organized, planned, deliberate cover-up.”
The courthouse Wahoo, Nebraska: the hearings begin. Alisha Owen is ready to testify, so too is Paul Bonacci, but there is no sign of Troy Boner. DeCamp discovers that Robert Sigler has sent the young man a threatening subpoena. Fearing arrest for perjury, Troy has gone into hiding. In court, DeCamp successfully pleads for another adjournment. The county attorney’s office begins to search for Troy Boner, but Robert Sigler won’t say why.
Interviewer: “Can I ask you whether you are about to charge Troy Boner with perjury?”
Robert Sigler: “Oh, no comment on that.”
Interviewer: “Why, is it, I wonder, Mr. Sigler, you’re a public official, aren’t you? Mr. Sigler, is it true you are about to charge on Troy Boner with perjury?”
Robert Sigler: “No comment!”
Interviewer: “Mr. Sigler, if you do not charge Troy Boner with perjury, does that mean you accept what he is saying is true?”
Robert Sigler: “No comment.”
Interviewer: “Why are you trying to have Troy Boner summoned to this hearing, Mr. Sigler?”
Robert Sigler: “No comment.”
Interviewer: “Why no comment, Mr. Sigler?”
Robert Sigler: “No comment.”
DeCamp: “Every victim witness who stepped forward in any way, or even was a potential witness that somebody heard about, has either been killed, put in jail under some theory or other, terrified or run out of the state, discredited. Every perpetrator, every perpetrator, even the convicted ones have been treated as conquering heroes. Obviously, the FBI was protecting something a lot more significant than a bunch of old pedophiles having improper relations with little boys. They were protecting something a lot more significant than a bunch of drug peddlers. They were protecting, in my opinion, they were protecting some very prominent politicians, some very powerful and wealthy individuals associated with those politicians and the political system, up to and including the highest political people in this entire country.”
In search of answers, John DeCamp goes to Washington to investigate Larry King’s powerful connections in the nation’s capitol. Paul Bonacci has come too. Larry King threw child-sex parties at his five thousand dollar a month Washington house. Paul Bonacci was one of the victims.
Paul Bonacci: “Larry king’s house down in Washington, D.C. was, it was a nice house. It was on what, I guess, I believe was Embassy Row, because that’s what they kept talking about. There were a lot of flags from different countries when you drove around in the area.”
DeCamp: “So tell me Paul, how often did you come here?”
Paul Bonacci: “I was about 14 about 1981, and at first it was about 3 or 4 times the first year. After that, it was about once a month, after 81.”
DeCamp: “And who brought you here?”
Paul Bonacci: “Larry King brought me here.”
DeCamp: “And this is the actual house where you…”
Paul Bonacci: “Yes.”
DeCamp: “And what? You were used for sex there?”
Paul Bonacci: “Yes. In some of the parties when they started off were straight political-type parties with no sex. And then when some of the men had left, some of the politicians had left, the ones that had planned, they had planned on engaging in some type of sexual activity, that would come after the party. Some of the kids would be held downstairs in some of the rooms where if they acted up or if they started freaking out because of the drugs that they were on, they would put them in a room that they couldn’t get out of and they would lock them in.”
DeCamp: “Were there drugs at these parties?”
Paul Bonacci: “Yes.”
DeCamp: “What kind of drugs?”
Paul Bonacci: “Anything you wanted—cocaine, heroin, speedballs…”
DeCamp: “You’re telling me those things were at these parties where you had Larry King and prominent politicians?”
Paul Bonacci: “Yes.”
DeCamp: “Were they readily available to anybody at the party?”
Paul Bonacci: “They—at the after parties, they were readily available for anybody. Beforehand, they did it more upstairs than they did it anywhere else. It was kind of in the back rooms.”
DeCamp: “Were any attempts ever made that you know of to expose this situation?”
Paul Bonacci: “As far as I know, nothing’s ever been done, and most of the people that were in there had already been, I guess you can say, compromised.”
King’s partner in sex-crime was powerful Washington lobbyist, Craig Spence. He took youngsters like Bonacci on midnight tours of the White House.
DeCamp: “So you were in the White House then?”
Paul Bonacci: “Yes.”
DeCamp: “And how did you gain access?”
Paul Bonacci: “Well, I came down with Larry King, but Craig Spence was the one that arranged the trip for us, and it was kind of a gift for our services that we were doing.”
DeCamp: “How many times were you on this kind of a trip?”
Paul Bonacci: “I came to it on two times.”
DeCamp: “Two times. And were you used for sex on those occasions?”
Paul Bonacci: “Not till after we left.”
DeCamp: “After you left the White House?”
Paul Bonacci: “Yes.”
DeCamp: “What time of night?”
Paul Bonacci: “It was usually around midnight. To me it was just kind of weird being in the White House at that time of the night, and getting to go into places that the guy was telling us that nobody gets to go to. And we’ve seen, I’ve seen rooms in there that I’d never even heard about. Craig Spence and Larry King had a couple of groups, one was called ‘Bodies by God,’ and they had the callboys, and there was another group that was started by Larry King which was called the ‘Golden Boys,’ which was kids that were usually under the age of approximately ten.”
On the trail of Craig Spence, DeCamp finds the investigative reporter who exposed Spence’s callboy network, Paul Rodriquez of the Washington Times.
Paul Rodriquez: “We had uncovered a series of allegations from some minors that led me to a callboy operation here in Washington.”
DeCamp: “That sure fits with, you know, with the boy Paul Bonacci, and he tells a tale of being brought to the White House on occasion, kind of as a reward for the kid.”
Paul Rodriguez: “Craig Spence’s dad committed suicide. He had advanced stages of aids. He was an aid’s carrier and he killed himself. This was the thing that always bothered me. They claim it was the largest male prostitution ring in the city that they’ve ever, ever had uncovered. It was a million dollars a year minimum.”
DeCamp: “Yeah.”
Paul Rodriquez: “And yet they only prosecuted the operator, Henry Vincent, and three of his lieutenants as it were. They never went after any of the Johns or the clients. This operation which was again, quite large, claimed to have clients that ran from the White House to the Capitol Hill, to the State House, to the churches, within the media, and a lot of…”
DeCamp: “That’s precisely what Paul describes as the people he was with.”
Paul Rodriquez: “And a lot of the stuff led there, but we couldn’t quite nail it at all cases because, again, to accuse someone of high stature you’ve got to be very careful.”
DeCamp: “I understand.”
Paul Rodriquez: “We were able to do it through the mother load, which provided us credit card receipts and cancelled checks, and then lists of the clients. The prosecutors knew all this stuff. There was approximately twenty thousand pieces of documents, or twenty thousand documents that they had. They sealed the entire record when they found out I was accessing them. They required consent agreements from all the lawyers, all the clients, all the relatives of all the clients, all the hookers, including the clients themselves.”
DeCamp: “Which means you can never gain access.”
Paul Rodriquez: “They sealed them by court order and we have tried, we’ve attempted on several occasions to unseal that, and we’ve been told that it will be a cold day in Hell before those records ever get unsealed. And it makes me wonder what’s in those records?”
DeCamp: “Yeah.”
The Attorney General is now involved. Bill Colby has passed the DeCamp evidence to a senior lawyer in the Justice Department.
He [Former Director of the CIA, William Colby] did say that the Attorney General’s office would be very sensitive to any charges of abuse of children. That this was a matter of considerable priority to the Department that this sort of thing not take place and that they would assign an officer to look into the case.
For John DeCamp, the story of Larry King’s corrupt empire holds a dire warning for America.
DeCamp: “If you can control about three or four key elements, you can totally own a state. You can make right, wrong; you can make truth, falsehood; falsehood, truth. If you control the media, if you control the Justice Department, if you control the police, you own the system.”
Police Detective: “It’s beyond belief that arguably the most powerful person in the world, the President of the United States in the form of Richard Nixon, could not prevent the investigation of Watergate, or that President Reagan could not prevent the investigation of Iran-Contra, and yet somehow this group of unnamed, unknown, anonymous individuals in Omaha, Nebraska have such power, they can control and protect all of these people from being investigated. Those allegations are ridiculous.”
DeCamp: “Well, first of all, Nixon did cover up Watergate, number one. Bush did cover up Iran-Contra, at least officially; and Omaha has successfully covered up this situation. In each case, it was the press that exposed the problem. It wasn’t institutions of government. They had been corrupted, they had been compromised, they were the ones doing the cover up. The Justice Department, acting through FBI and the US attorney’s office in Omaha, emerges from the record of the Franklin investigation. Not so much as a party to the cover up, but as its coordinator. Reading grand juries, harassment of witnesses, incitement of perjury and tampering with evidence, federal personnel were seen to apply all those techniques in the Franklin case.
Final Update developments, at end of the book, “The Franklin Cover-up,” by John DeCamp (first edition), 2004-2005 :
In late 2003, Troy Boner walked into a hospital in New Mexico screaming, “they’re after me, they’re after me because of this book.”
The book Troy was waving was this book, The Franklin Cover-Up.
Boner was “… mildly sedated and calmed down … and put in a private room for ‘observation.” “When nurses came to check on him early next morning, Boner was sitting in a chair, bleeding from the mouth and quite dead. Former FBI Los Angeles Bureau Chief Ted Gunderson tried to get autopsy and other information and details that were promised him on Boner’s death, but Gunderson, and apparently every other entity, were totally shut out of all information. No news stories on Boner’s death were published in the news, despite Boner’s previous front page fame and “notoriety” in the Franklin case.
