THE FRANKLIN COVER UP,
CHILD ABUSE,SATANISM &
MURDER IN NEBRASKA
BY JOHN W. DECAMP
MURDER IN NEBRASKA
BY JOHN W. DECAMP
CHAPTER II
COVER-UP PHASE II
THE DOUGLAS
COUNTY
GRAND
JURY
On July 23, 1990, twelve days after the sudden death of Gary
Caradori, the Douglas County grand jury, formed in the wake
of the DeCamp memo, issued its long-awaited report. A banner
headline in the World-Herald trumpeted: "Grand Jury Says
Abuse Stories Were a 'Carefully Crafted Hoax'."
The conclusions presented in the 42-page "Grand Jury Report,"
not to mention the pretentious language in which it
discounted whole areas of the Franklin case, betray the deliberations
of the jury, rather, as a carefully crafted cover-up. The
grand jury gave opinions on a variety of matters.
The Douglas County grand jury cleared Larry King of
child abuse:
We found no credible evidence of child sexual abuse, interstate
transportation of minors, drug trafficking or participation
in a pornography ring by King or other Franklin officials
or employees. To the extent that homosexual relations occurred
involving such employees or officials, the evidence we
were able to uncover showed these exchanges to be voluntary
acts between persons above the age of consent.
Yes, Larry King had diverted credit union funds for his
personal gain, but "it is our opinion that federal authorities are
better able to pursue matters regarding this misappropriation
of credit union funds, and we strongly recommend that they continue to do so." And although "we also found probable
cause to believe that King, on numerous occasions, used money
or items of value to 'entice, inveigle, persuade, encourage or
procure' men in their late teens or early twenties to engage in
acts of prostitution with him, and, therefore, he committed the
crime of pandering," the statute of limitations had run out on
many of these acts, and "our ultimate decision was that to
charge and try King with a class IV felony under state law
when he is facing 40 felony counts in federal court [on financial
charges only] would not be the best use of the resources of
the Douglas County District Court, and again we have deferred
to the federal prosecution."
So careful was this grand jury not to fritter public resources,
that it did not even subpoena Larry King!
The grand jury explained away its failure to call King as
a witness:
Because King is presently in an institution out of the state
pursuant to an order from the federal court, and because we
believed he would rely on his right against self-incrimination
... , we decided it would not be fruitful to attempt to require
King to appear before us.
Whenever it did admit that abuse had taken place, the grand
jury stipulated that none of it had anything to do with the
Franklin Credit Union.
The grand jury indicted three people. First came Alan Baer,
the department store heir, one of the five persons named in the
DeCamp memo.
We did have testimony from certain witnesses about sexual
involvement with Baer. Evidence also showed that these
witnesses received substantial amounts of money or other
valuables in exchange for sex.... Therefore, we believe
Baer committed the offense of pandering, and we have
handed down an indictment against him for that offense.
However that may be, the grand jury added, "We have
found no direct connection between Alan Baer and King or
the Franklin Credit Union, other than limited social and business
dealings."
Peter Citron, another of the five I named, appeared before
the grand jury and was found to have had "inappropriate sexual
contact with male minors," but again, "no connection has been
found to link Citron with the Franklin Credit Union.... " Citron
had already been indicted and convicted for these contacts in
a separate court process.
The other two people indicted were the victim-witnesses,
Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci. These young people had suffered,
admitted the grand jury, but that had nothing to do
with Franklin: "We think that Owen might have been sexually
abused during her early years, but not by the people and in
the way she has alleged." As for Bonacci, "according to his
testimony, he was a child victim of repeated sexual abuse
by persons not associated with the Franklin investigation."
Accusing them of lying to the grand jury during May and June
of 1990, the jury handed down indictments against Owen on
eight counts of perjury and against Bonacci on three counts.
Troy Boner and Danny King, the other two main witnesses
taped by Caradori, recanted in the spring of 1990. The Douglas
County grand jury made no mention of the fact that by retracting their testimony to Caradori, the two were saying that they lie
to the Legislature, whose representative Caradori was.
The grand jury noted that in a May 1990 interim report, it had
recommended "that the Washington County Attorney charge
Jarrett Webb with third degree sexual assault of a minor," namely
Nelly Patterson Webb. Where Nelly had reported organized
abuse and prostitution, however, she was not to be believed:
In early 1986, Nelly began to expand her allegations by
charging that she had been taken by King on flights to other
cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C. where she
was "put on display" at parties where sex and illegal drug
activities took place. We interviewed a number of witnesses
who traveled extensively with King, and a few made what
must have been embarrassing admissions about engaging in
sexual contact with King on some of these trips. However,
no witness before the Grand Jury could confirm in any way
that Nelly Webb or any other children were ever transported for any illegal purposes and we found no evidence to support
these claims.
Addressing other dimensions of the Webb's house of horrors,
the grand jury offered its opinion that it was "unfortunate that
so much time elapsed between the first allegations of abuse
and the time that the last children were removed from the
home." It then faulted Carol Stitt of the Foster Care Review
Board for writing to the state attorney general so promptly
about Loretta Smith's reports, instead of first making more
inquiries on her own! But Attorney General Spire had "appropriately
passed the information on to Law Enforcement chief William Howland," and any delays past that point must have
been due to Howland's heavy workload, in the jury's opinion.
Loretta Smith, who testified before the grand jury, had "suffered
more abuse and neglect than anyone should ever have
to endure," but "the perpetrators of such abuse may never be
known." In any event, "the Grand Jury found no evidence to
substantiate any connection between King, or any Franklin
personnel, and the alleged illegal activities described by the
girl."
The grand jury report contained gratuitous pronouncements
such as that "children do have the right to expect that if they
exhibit reasonable behavior, they will not be abused." (Emphasis
added.)
It casually mentioned that, according to the O.P.D, there were
"over 500 known pedophiles in the Omaha area." (Since the
U.S. Department of Justice estimates that a typical pedophile
molests 77 children before he is caught, and most are never
caught, a contingent of 500 pedophiles would be abusing thousands
of children every year!)
One pedophile even
caused us [grand jury members] to be greatly concerned.
This individual, Robert W. Andresen, a white male, 6'5",
325 lbs., has been known to coerce males (including male
minors) to his residence. Once he has taken a male there,
he may sexually assault and/or pornographically photograph the young man. Furthermore, we have reviewed documents
that state Andresen has threatened to physically harm his
victim(s) and has threatened to search out and kill those
who report him to the authorities.
Having painted that bloodcurdling portrait, the grand jury
dismissed the matter with a wave: "Unfortunately, because the
victims refused to testify against him, we could not indict." In
reality, Andresen figured in the taped testimony of Troy Boner
and Danny King to Gary Caradori, which the grand jury neglected
to say.
The grand jury charged that the "hoax" was spread by certain
"rumormongers"; among these, it named two child care workers,
to whom the victims had begun to speak. In the opinion
of the grand jury, "Perhaps never in the history of Douglas
County has the discordant multitude played so feverishly upon
the rumor pipe as in the allegations of sexual misconduct surrounding Franklin."
Senator Schmit
All those who had pursued the allegations, such as Senator
Schmit and the Franklin committee, Senator Chambers, this
writer, members of the Concerned Parents, and a free-lance
journalist named Michael Casey, came under attack from the
grand jury. But, in a striking variation from normal grand jury
procedure-to either indict an individual or not to name him
at all-this jury cleared, by name, all the prominent alleged
abusers, including Judge Theodore Carlson, Harold Andersen,
former Game and Parks Commissioner Eugene Mahoney,
Omaha Mayor P.J. Morgan, and Omaha lawyer Thomas
McKenney. As for alleged abuser Chief Robert Wadman, the
jury observed, "We now look upon Owen as the perpetrator
and Wadman as the victim."
According to the grand jury, one of the perpetrators did not
even exist: "Owen repeatedly referred to a bodyguard and
enforcer of King's nicknamed 'Larry the Kid.' We believe this
muscular, black male, in his late teens or early twenties, to
be a fictitious character." The report did not explain, how a
fabricated personality could have appeared in reports from at
least four different children over a period of three years. Loretta
Smith told about a person named King Horse, who was at parties and rituals she attended in 1985. Alisha Owen testified
that Larry King's "henchman" was a black youth named "Larry
(Lnuk)", also known as Kings Horses. Danny King said "Larry,
Jr." was King's right hand man. And Paul Bonacci reported
that a black man he called "Larry Little King" would carry out
threats on Larry King's behalf.
Finally, the report insisted that there was no cover-up.
There are citizens who believe that prominent individuals,
allegedly associated with this case, are automatically guilty
because of their public stature. They also believe that the
public stature of these individuals allows automatic protection
and the power to cover up situations. While we agreed
that this was a possibility, our investigation found nothing
to substantiate any of these allegations. There is no evidence
of a cover up.
The Douglas County grand jury said it "spent the most time"
and "the majority of our fact finding and deliberative effort,"
on refuting the videotaped testimony assembled by Gary Caradori.
It concluded, "There is no doubt after reviewing all relevant
evidence, that the story of sexual abuse, drugs, prostitution,
and judicial bribery presented in the legislative videotapes is
a carefully crafted hoax, scripted by a person or persons with
considerable knowledge of the people and institutions of
Omaha, including personal relationships and shortcomings."[and of course the "hoax" is what got Caradori and his son dead DC]
With Caradori, as Senator Schmit put it, "conveniently no
longer alive to defend himself," the grand jury insinuated that
he had staged the tapes for personal profit:
We have scrutinized Caradori's investigative techniques. In
too many instances individuals Caradori interviewed were
"fed" items of information. He led his witnesses and the
videotapes were stopped and started at suspicious intervals
with the substance of the witnesses' stories changing. Caradori
stated that he thought it was his job to find the leads
and it was someone else's responsibility to follow them up.
We believe to the contrary. We think that Caradori stood
to gain professionally and personally from the outcome.
Caradori spent more time supporting the allegations rather than verifying the same. Caradori worked from a sensational
base. If there appeared to be something that would be scandalous,
he was interested in following it through. If it was
just a routine matter, he was not willing to invest the necessary
time or effort.
In October 1990, Karen Ormiston, the employee of Caradori's
investigative firm who was with him at the videotapings,
passed a polygraph test administered by Chris Gugas, a professional
polygraph specialist from San Diego who was President
of the National Polygraph Association. The questions to which
she answered "no," were: "1. During Gary Caradori's interviews
with the Franklin case victims, did he ever threaten
anyone in obtaining information from them? 2. To the best of
your knowledge, did Gary coach any of the alleged Franklin
case victims on what they should say in their interviews? 3.
Did Gary and you advise any of the four victims at anytime
to fabricate their stories?" To the question, "Were all the statements
given to you and Gary by the four Franklin case victims
completely voluntary?" she answered "yes." Gugas concluded,
"It is the opinion of this examiner that Ms. Ormiston answered
all of the above relevant questions truthfully,"
One of Caradori's close associates said after his death, "We
never thought these tapes represented more than a tiny part of
the overall story. They are important, but the Franklin case has
been turned into a debate on the tapes." The collaborator was
talking about the investigation's reach into high political circles
and into Washington D.C., but the point applies also to the
use of the tapes themselves. The bad faith of the grand jury's
dismissal of Caradori's work comes even more into relief, if
contrasted with the reams of evidence in the investigator's files,
which the grand jury apparently failed to consider. By no means
satisfied with the taped statements as they stood, the meticulous
Caradori listed, at the end of each interview precis, dozens
of leads for follow-up and cross-checking. A small excerpt
demonstrates his exhaustive investigative agenda:
6. Records from what was formerly Brandeis to determine
the payment of the dress and teddy that Wadman bought
Alish
7. The bartender who was present at the French Cafe
when Alisha had lunch with Wadman.
8. The kitchen help who was employed at the French
Cafe at the time that Alisha and Wadman had lunch there.
23. Fuel records for the private planes that Alisha took.
This would indicate where the plane fueled up, especially
on flights to the west coast.
24. David Hughes; a pilot named by Alisha as one of
Larry King's favorite pilots.
Caradori did not trace through many of these leads, because
he died. But the grand jury waved them aside.
The jury's report says that it "heard live testimony from 76
witnesses" in all. Caradori's notes on the Alisha Owen and
Troy Boner tapes alone, list over 75 people to be interviewed
during follow-up, not counting Alisha and Troy. Caradori's
evidence, the originals of which occupy a whole locked room
at the statehouse, comprise cross-indexed binders, boxes of
files, hundreds of hours of audiotapes as well as the videotapes,
and a list of 291 potential witnesses in all. The grand jury had
a full set in its possession.
I do know, who from Caradori's potential witness lists was
called before the panel, because I was one of the few people
who ultimately had access to this information. I am forbidden
from identifying these people.
As I have said, I believe that if the entire grand jury testimony
could be made public, that would be in the public interest. I
also believe that, if that were done, there would be a followup
grand jury to investigate the original grand jury.
• • •
The Grand Jury Report met with outrage.
Trish Lanphier, head of the Concerned Parents group, two
of whose founders were denounced as "rumormongers" by the
grand jury, blasted the indictment of Alisha Owen and Paul
Bonacci: "This is a sick grand jury. Turning the victim into
the perpetrator. This is so classic."
Phone calls against the jury's findings poured into a local
TV station, as reported in the Omaha Metro Update of July
30: "The day after the grand jury report hit on Tuesday, July
24, an 'unscientific' viewer phone-in poll by Omaha television
station KETV Channel 7 indicated 10-1 viewer dissatisfaction
with the grand jury report. More than 3,000 responses were
tallied."
The jury claimed,without having called me to testify that
I had "issued my memorandum for personal political
gain and possible revenge for past actions against me." I filed
a civil suit, charging that the jury's statements "were malicious,
intentional, negligent and done in ... violation of my clearly
established constitutional and statutory rights."
Senator Chambers submitted a "Motion to Expunge" to the
Douglas County District Court, accompanied by an 83-page
supporting brief, which documented the jury's gross irregularities.
The legislative Franklin committee's official response to the
jury's report raised a question which the jury had carefully
left unanswered. "We assume from their choice of words carefully
crafted hoax," the Franklin committee said, "that the
Grand Jury was persuaded that the testimony of the witnesses
corroborated each other, and included facts and circumstances
which were readily verifiable and attested to by other witnesses.
Otherwise, it could not be logically deemed 'carefully crafted.'
If it was carefully crafted, who crafted it and when?"
In addition, the committee observed, "Alisha Owen and Paul
Bonacci are charged with perjury and Troy Boner and Danny
King are not. As we see it, the victims who stand by their story
are charged with perjury, while those that have admitted to
false statements before the Committee [in the videotaped testimony]
are not. That makes little sense to us. Either all of them
should have been indicted or none of them. The message is
mixed and appears to favor encouraging the recanting as a way
to avoid the hazards of criminal prosecution. It also tells persons
they can lie under oath to Legislative Committees, so long as
they change their story before they get to court."
• • •
The Omaha World-Herald, whose society columnist Citron
stood convicted of child molestation while its former publisher,
Andersen, was whitewashed in the grand jury report, leaped
to the jury's defense. "Grand Jury Did Its Job; The Insults Are
Intolerable," blared its lead editorial on July 29, 1990.
Rumors of wrongdoing and cover up in the Franklin case
were rampant last winter. Based on the conclusions of the
Douglas County grand jury, it now appears that the rumors
resulted from the fantasies of liars, hoaxers and opportunists
who wanted to pay back their perceived political enemies.
Because of the rumors last winter, however, the faith of
much of the public in its institutions was shaken. At one
time, there seemed no way to determine the truth.
How fortunate Nebraska was to have the grand jury system
to help it get to the truth.
Now, however, the grand jury system itself is under attack.
The grand jurors who constituted the Douglas County
body are being insulted. Doubts are being cast upon their
integrity.
The barrage continued, with an August 2, 1990 World-Herald
editorial, "Schmit Panel Can't Duck Responsibility in
Hoax":
Loran Schmit is frantically rewriting history as he urges the
public to believe that his Franklin committee doesn't deserve
the criticism it was given by the Douglas County grand jury.
. . .
Senator Schmit, you and other people connected with
the committee haven't been putting evidence together properly
since the day committee investigator Gary Caradori
made the videotapes that became part of the Franklin story.
. . .
Schmit clearly had his mind made up on the credibility
of many of the stories on the videotapes. By June, still
sticking by his view that the stories were believable, he
was insinuating that "money is being spent" to block the
indictments of prominent people. The more such statements
were repeated, the more some Nebraskans believed the wild tale of a sex-and-drug ring and cover-up involving Omaha
individuals and institutions.
• • •
The World-Herald evidently hoped that the "wild tale" about
prostitution and a cover-up had been laid to rest by the grand
jury. The more that became known about that panel, however,
the more obvious it was that the grand jury itself, guided by
prosecutor Samuel Van Pelt, was adding to the cover-up, and
had systematically leaked sensitive information, buried crucial
evidence, and threatened witnesses.
In my opinion, never was a case of control and abuse of
institutions of government and cover-up of crime executed
more perfectly, than in the calling and handling of this
grand jury.
A grand jury can be the best or the worst device to uncover
crime. First, everything in a grand jury is supposed to be secret.
Second, the prosecutor in charge of the grand jury can do about
as he pleases, in presenting or screening information. If a
corrupt or incompetent prosecutor is in charge, the result will
correspond to his behavior.
Third, if the grand jury is controlled by corrupt forces, as I
believe this one was, then they may use the grand jury as a
means to find out what people know about the matter under
scrutiny, by calling them as witnesses, without any of that
information becoming public. Then such information can be
used to assist in a cover-up. The so-called recantations of Troy
Boner and Danny King appear to be a case in point.
Nebraska may have the worst laws in the United States, on
the use of the grand jury system. They contribute to corruption
and cover-up, rather than proper investigation and indictment.
At an October 14-15, 1991 hearing in the 8th Circuit Court
of Appeals in St. Paul, Minnesota, this fact was exploited by
the Nebraska Attorney General's Office, which was defending
Douglas County Prosecutor Van Pelt and the grand jury foreman
in the Franklin case, Michael Flanagan, before a three judge
panel that was questioning them. The state's argument was that the poor quality and ambiguity of Nebraska state laws
on the use of grand juries at the county level should exempt
the prosecutor and the foreman from responsibility for any
errors or wrongdoing committed by the grand jury.
All grand jury testimony remains sealed. The evidence given
here of the jury's role in the cover-up comes from the public
domain; it is a fraction of the story.
• • •
Arthur Kirk
Concern that the grand jury was rigged arose even before
it was chosen, just as soon as retired judge Van Pelt was named
as special prosecutor for the Franklin case at the county level.
On March 12, 1990, the Lincoln Journal ran a letter from 43
neighbors of the late Cairo, Nebraska farmer and political activist
Arthur Kirk, in which they termed Van Pelt "a hired gun
for the state." The group charged that Van Pelt had covered
up the 1984 death of Kirk at the hands of a State Police SWAT
squad, which they called murder. In that case, they wrote, "Van
Pelt simply took the statements of the perpetrators, put them
in his report and exonerated them of any wrongdoing. He did
exactly what he was paid and hired to do."
Gross irregularities in Van Pelt's investigation of Kirk's
death were noted by Senator Ernie Chambers and others at the
time. The police, for instance, claimed that Kirk fired first. If
he had, their claim to have fired in self-defense might have
held water; yet no ballistics tests were done to see if Kirk had
fired his weapon at all! Kirk's wife charged that she had been
used by the state police to lure Kirk out of his house, so he
could be gunned down. "I came to realize that they had used
me against my own husband. I had been used as a decoy," she
was quoted in Lindsey Williams' 1987 book, Where's the
Food? Despite glaring contradictions in the SWAT team's
story, Van Pelt found that the police had acted in self-defense.
The World-Herald retaliated against the Cairo citizens' letter,
with an all-out defense of Van Pelt. The March 17, 1990
lead editorial, "Van Pelt's Report on Kirk Followed the Evidence,"
lamented, "The sad fact of the matter is that some people cling to wild, sensational rumors and conspiracy theories
even in the absence of any rational basis."
• • • •
Van Pelt's behavior during the Franklin grand jury was no
rumor, but a matter of record. Three people who testified before
the grand jury-Paul Bonacci, Alisha Owen, and a young
woman called "Jane Doe"-subsequently charged that Van
Pelt intimidated them and attempted to force them to change
their testimony.
Paul Bonacci testified before the Legislature's Franklin committee
on October 16, 1990, about his grand jury experience.
BONACCI: And the other thing is they kept saying when I
was in front of the-that-some-that jury or whatever,
they kept telling me to-that if I stuck to my story they
were going to make me be in trouble for it.
SENATOR SCHMIT: Who said that?
BONACCI: It was some guy with a-it wasn't in front of
everybody, it was when I was getting ready to be taken back
upstairs before lunch. They stuck me in this room. He was
sitting in this back room behind this desk. He was one of
the guys that kept asking me questions.
BEVERLY MEAD (Bonacci's doctor): Well, could you identify
this particular man who in-describe him or
BONACCI:
Yeah. He was-had a mustache and I don't know
if he had glasses or not. ... He was the guy mainly in
charge ....
MR. DECAMP (Bonacci's attorney): What did he say to you?
BONACCI: He kind of told me if I just-he said-he kind
of said, if you stick to the same story that you have been
telling, you will be in a lot of trouble.
The guy with the mustache was Sam Van Pelt.
On June 11, 1990, Alisha Owen testified to the Franklin
committee about what happened when she went before Van
Pelt's grand jury.
LEGISLATlVE COUNSEL: First of all, do you have any comment
at all about the grand jury and you can-that you would
like to tell us without violating your oath to the grand jury?
AUSHA OWEN: It was the hardest three days of my life
almost.
COUNSEL: Well, now wait a minute. You've been sexually
abused, you've been put into a narcotics situation, you have
been in a mental hospital, you have attempted suicide, and
you are saying that your appearance before the grand jury
was-was more difficult than that, is that correct?
OWEN: It was more exhausting, yes. I would go home and
be exhausted. Exhausted.
COUNSEL: I am going to ask a leading question. Were you
humiliated, denigrated, degraded, put down?
OWEN: Yes.... I met with them on a Monday and that was
just a very short meeting. And then I met with them on a
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That Wednesday I was
humiliated, I was put totally on the defense. Totally put on
the defense.
COUNSEL: By whom?
OWEN: By I call him the jerk at the end of the table. I believe
his name is Dougherty.... I have not seen prosecutors do
that in a courtroom the way I was-I was done. I was angry,
I was upset. I did not deserve that.
COUNSEL: Your voice is cracking and you are tearing up a
little. I am going to stop and ask [Owen's attorney] Mr.
Rosenthal a question .... Henry, did you feel that you were
given an adequate opportunity to protect your client during
the grand jury proceedings?
ROSENTHAL: Well, I was to the extent that I was allowed
to. You see, in my opinion they just never asked her any
questions at all.... And I think at one time, without getting
into it, they asked her do you want to say anything? She
says, I'm sorry you never got to the point in three days. It
was always go around the circle and it was always accusatory
more than trying to get the facts out and let the chips fall
where they may. They never gave her an opportunity to go
into them, you see.
Although the grand jury was to indict Owen for saying she
was sexually abused by Omaha Police Chief Robert Wadman
in 1983 and 1984, she said they asked her virtually nothing
about those years, about the abuse, or about her detailed description
of Wadman's physiognomy.
OWEN: I-you know, as I said before, they never talked
to me about 1983 and 1984. They don't even know what
happened. They-they send me into this grand jury, they
are calling me a perjurer and they have never even asked me
what happened. And when-it's kind of hard for me because
I want people to know I'm telling the truth, and sometimes
some of the things that you have to tell them about what
happened or about the perpetrators is difficult. And it would
be, I think, a gross injustice if that evidence was suppressed.
The fact that I know about the bunion or the knot on his
little toe and he has hair on his toes, you know, I can tell
you exactly how the hair patches on his feet are, it would
be a gross injustice if that was suppressed in the grand
jury. I think that would-that would be absolutely a crime.
Because in the United States today when it comes to those
kinds of cases, a lot of times the only way that a victim can
actually prove that they were abused is by identifying key
marks on that person's body that no one else would know.
A way to call me a liar and a way to say she's not telling
the truth would be to suppress that, would be not to watch I
made you a tape describing Rob's body. For the grand
jury, I consider that a key piece of evidence. For that to be
suppressed I think is a crime. I think that that is willful,
knowledgeable suppression of evidence. And to have that
done by a prosecutor, I think that's a crime and that's a
deliberate cover-up.
Jane Doe recorded her anger with the grand jury in a taped
interview with Senator Ernie Chambers, reported on in the
Nebraska Observer of August 31, 1990:
She was left with the overwhelming impression that the
Grand Jury had wanted only that part of her testimony that
might be useful to discredit Alisha Owen. Later, she was to
receive phone calls from a male saying she talked too much.
Since she had moved several times since her partying days,
and except for phone calls right after being investigated by
the FBI, had not had any such phone calls, she believed
that someone connected with the Grand Jury was giving
out information.
Jane Doe charged that the grand jury was simply a set-up:
"Then the fact is also, about half way through my testimony,
in front of the Grand Jury, it was, it got to a point where I
didn't even trust them. Because of the fact that they did not
want to know about Alisha or any of that type of stuff." ...
According to Jane Doe, Van Pelt told her how to testify
and why, revealing information about the Grand Jury proceedings
that others had been charged to keep secret. ...
Van Pelt was said to make some references to Jane Doe's
past, including some illegal activities that were blocked out
of the transcript, that could have been interpreted by her as
a threat to her. She said in the interview, "there were some
things that I had done in my past that I was afraid he was
going to charge me with.... Basically he was using me as,
like a dummy witness because he had figured out that I didn't
have or know about any of the information that the Grand
Jury was dealing with.... So it just seemed to me like
he was going to use me to discredit Alisha," [Emphasis
in original.]
Senator Chambers
Bonnie Cosentino, a grand jury witness pilloried as one
of the "rumormongers," also contacted Senator Chambers to
register a complaint. A co-founder of the Concerned Parents
group, Cosentino told Chambers she was repeatedly harassed by Van Pelt's assistant Terry Dougherty outside the jury room.
The jury's sole interest, it seemed to her, was to tie her to
Michael Casey, a journalist whom the grand jury was to build
up as an orchestrator of the "carefully crafted hoax."
Cosentino wrote in her open letter to Chambers, printed in
the Omaha Metro Update:
Numerous questions asked by Mr. Van Pelt and Mr. Dougherty,
seemed to be accusatory and began with phrases
like, "Did you tell Carol Stitt ... (Foster Care Review
Board) and "Did you tell Jerry Lowe ... " (former Franklin
investigator). I found myself on trial for reporting leads to
the proper authorities.
I was questioned relentlessly about Michael Casey, who
seemed to be the focus of Mr. Van Pelt's prosecution. I had
only met Mr. Casey on two occasions, neither of which were
interviews. Mr. Van Pelt and Mr. Dougherty seemed to try
over and over again to form some relationship between
myself and Mr. Casey which simply did not exist.
Senator Schmit recalled his own appearance before the grand
jury, during a Franklin committee hearing on June 21, 1990:
And it's also sort of interesting, of course, I appeared before
the grand jury. I had about 25 minutes for a statement the
first time, and they had about that many questions. Mr. Van
Pelt said they didn't have any further need for my appearance
up there. And I thought that was sort of strange in view of
the fact that we spent a year and a half at this, we have
spent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours, and
[the Franklin committee] could answer all their questions.
And I might, without revealing anything that was asked,
might add that most of the questions that were asked of me,
I think [Franklin committee counsel] Mr. Berry is here, had
little or nothing to do with the scope of the investigation.
And the second time around, when I appeared at my
request, it was more of the same. And it's a rather disappointing
situation when you realize that if you are hunting for
something and you do not look where you know the evidence
is, you're not going to find it.
In my civil suit, I charged that Van Pelt and Dougherty had
even participated in writing the grand jury's final report, a
practice forbidden by Nebraska law. Jury foreman Michael
Flanagan admitted their involvement, as the World-Herald reported
on August 21, 1990:
Flanagan emphasized that the grand jurors participated
equally and actively in the writing of the report, dividing the writing into small groups and then meeting again and
again as a whole to "polish and polish" the text.
He said the special prosecutor, Samuel Van Pelt, and his
assistant, Terry Dougherty, did not have a disproportionate
amount of influence on the writing.
(Van Pelt) was with us and he was part of it,"
Flanagan said. I'd say he was one-eighteenth of the writing.
Everybody had equal chance and equal opportunity. It was
a completely joint effort."
The grand jury explained that its failure to subpoena Larry
King was due to the probability that King would have invoked
his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. In other
cases, it was fine with Van Pelt to call witnesses who would
take the fifth, as he indicated to Jane Doe in the exchange
reported by the Nebraska Observer:
On the return trip home, Mr. Van Pelt told Jane Doe about
the "easy day" coming up the next day. When she asked
why, he disclosed to her that the witness would "plead the
Fifth." She said, "He told me that he was a homosexual and
that he had sex with little boys. And that they would indict
him on that, so the fact is that he had to plead the Fifth so
he would not get indicted." Van Pelt said it would be an
easy day "because he wouldn't have to do anything," except
"just sit there and listen to those guys plead the Fifth throughout
the questions." ...
That exchange, in addition to consisting of inappropriate
disclosure by Mr. Van Pelt, is in sharp contrast to the Jury's
refusal to subpoena Larry King, "because ... he would rely
on his right against self-incrimination," and therefore,
would not be fruitful to attempt to require King to appear
before (the Grand Jury)." [Emphasis in original.]
• • •
Van Pelt's treatment of Jane Doe caused such a public outcry,
that Douglas County prosecutor Ronald Staskiewicz felt compelled
to conduct an investigation. He appointed Douglas
County Assistant Attorney Robert Sigler. Sigler was very familiar with the Franklin case; he was the prosecuting attorney
when Alisha Owen was sentenced to five years in prison for
passing $700 in bad checks. He had handled the child molestation
trial of World-Herald society columnist Peter Citron. After
Citron's conviction, Sigler maintained that the Citron case had
never been linked with the Franklin investigation "in the beginning,
middle, or end. That's not what this case is about." He
told the World-Herald. "It had nothing to do with Franklin,
the evidence uncovered didn't show any link. That's a big
misconception."
Neither was Sigler disqualified from responsibility to probe
Van Pelt's performance, by the fact that two witnesses to the
Legislature's Franklin committee witnesses had placed him in
the Franklin case!
On June 10, 1990, Karen Ormiston interviewed one Alice
Good*, who had information on pornography and prostitution.
Ormiston recorded, "The subject feels that a Douglas County
prosecuting attorney identified as Robert Seigler [sic], nicknamed
'Smiley,' is involved with the Franklin case."
Paul Bonacci was more specific, in testimony given to the
Franklin committee on June 12, 1990.
BONACCI: With Larry King I've traveled a lot of times to
Kansas City, and that was usually by car. But we used to
go up to Sioux City, Iowa and we used to take a-there
was a chartered plane. It was called KAM Air or something.
And they used to fly us up to Sioux City and we'd stay at
a hotel that was right on the river. And he had a boat and
stuff we used to go on all the time. And he-we used to go
up there for having sex and stuff. ...
SENATOR LYNCH: Were some of the people you met there
from the Omaha area, do you remember that?
BONACCI: Yes.
LYNCH: Do you remember some of their names at all?
BONACCI: Joe Caniglia. Guy named Robert Siegler [sic].
Alan Baer was there.
Before he joined the Douglas County prosecutor's office,
Sigler had worked for an Omaha law firm, where he handled the legal affairs of Charlie Rogers, a former lover of Larry
King who died an apparent suicide in 1989. In the days before
his death, Rogers told friends that he was very afraid of what
King would do to him, and that if anything happened to him,
to contact Robert Sigler. The Douglas County grand jury said
it "spent a considerable amount of time investigating all aspects
of Rogers' death," but concluded it had nothing to do with
Larry King. Sigler's friend and associate in the law firm, Gerald
Moran, later also joined the Douglas County attorney's office.
In 1991, he ran the prosecution of Alisha Owen for perjury.
Sigler promptly reported back to Staskiewicz, that Van Pelt
had done nothing wrong.
• • •
From the outset, Paul Bonacci presented a huge obstacle for
the Douglas County grand jury. Since Bonacci refused to recant
what he had testified to Caradori, Van Pelt's jury was compelled
to indict him for perjury, in order to maintain that the story of
Franklin-connected abuse was a carefully crafted hoax.
It was difficult to see how Bonacci could have participated
with Owen in the fabrication of such a hoax. Caradori did not
even meet him until May 10, 1990, and took his videotaped
statement for the Franklin committee on May 14-five days
after Owen finished testifying before the grand jury. Bonacci's
recollections corroborated Alisha's on many points, although
he told Caradori that he thought the last time he had spoken
with her was in 1986.
Since his testimony supported Owen's, the grand jury had
to call Bonacci a liar:
Bonacci was perhaps the most pathetic witness to appear
during the entire proceedings. . .. He has been diagnosed
as having multiple personalities, and his psychiatrist doubts
that he can tell the truth. His many inconsistencies and
contradictions render his testimony unbelievable and necessitate
his indictment for perjury.
This tortured formula contained not one, but two contradictions.
Obviously, a person who was medically incapable of telling the truth could not also be guilty of perjury, or deliberate
lying under oath. The second error, however, was to cite the
alleged opinion of "Bonacci's psychiatrist," who did not appear
as a witness before the grand jury. It was a stretch even to
apply this label to the doctor in question, Dr. Beverly Mead,
since he examined Bonacci on behalf of the Omaha Police
Department. But where Dr. Mead did testify, before the Franklin
committee, he said he believed Bonacci to be telling the
truth!
Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, New York-area psychiatrist,
lawyer, child abuse expert and member of the International
Society of Multiple Personality and Dissociative States, has
described the ailment Bonacci suffers from, Multiple Personality
Disorder (M.P.D). It is not a psychosis, she said, but a
neurosis, that results from a defense mechanism in the mind of
a child seeking to protect himself from "unimaginable atrocity."
Virtually all M.P.D victims were severely abused starting before
they were six years old, with tortures such as being hung upside
down and having hot objects stuck inside them, or being forced
to participate in the murder, mutilation and cannibalism of
other children. A child subjected to such terrible emotional and
physical pain has no possibility of escape from this "emotional
Auschwitz," so his mind, in self-defense, invents another identity
at the moment of abuse and suffering. Through this mechanism,
the child victim can imagine he is someone else, looking
at the pain and betrayal from the outside, as if it were not
actually happening to him. As the victim grows older, these
different personalities survive in the victim's mind, each having
its own age, name, memories and characteristics.
Multiple Personality Disorder is familiar to many people from
Flora Rheta Schreiber's book Sybil, about the first M.P.D victim
who ever reintegrated her personality through psychoanalysis.
"Sybil," tortured since infancy by her mother, first sought a psychiatrist's
help as a young woman in Omaha, Nebraska.
Invited to Omaha by the Legislature's Franklin committee,
Dr. Densen-Gerber testified on December 29, 1990 about her
examination of Paul Bonacci. She was questioned by committee
counsel Robert Creager.
CREAGER: Doctor, I believe the grand jury actually went so
far as to pin their conclusion on a "fact" that according to
testimony Mr. Bonacci was not capable of telling the truth.
Do you have a comment on that?
DENSEN-GERBER: I think it would be very difficult for Mr.
Bonacci to lie.... Being a multiple personality there is no
need to lie, you switch [personalities] .... First of all, Mr.
Bonacci's story is an average story for someone in Mr.
Bonacci's circumstances. There is nothing that Bonacci told
me that I haven't heard from other patients or individuals.
He has no elaborations and he often says I don't know. He
does not fabricate or he does not try to provide answers
which most people do because they want to please. He
doesn't even give you the impression that he wants to please.
Police-hired psychiatrist Dr. Beverly Mead concurred, when
he answered questions from senators and Bonacci's attorney,
this writer, at an October 1990 hearing before the Franklin
committee.
DECAMP: What do you believe now, Doctor, relative to his
discussions here that we've heard and the ones you and I
have listened to?
MEAD: I personally feel that these details that he's related
to us were experiences that he really experienced ....
SENATOR SCHMIT: I have several questions of Dr. Mead.
Doctor, we heard the witness in various personalities mention
some specific names of persons who were with him at
various times, Larry King, Robert Wadman. ... In your
professional experience, is there-how do you-I guess my
question is do you feel those descriptions are accurate?
MEAD: I would like to see them confirmed from other
sources, of course. But it's-it's my present impression that
Paul is-or [personality] Alexandrew is reporting things
honestly as he remembers them.
SCHMIT: Is there any way that he could have imagined this
and dreamed it up and then told it to us here today? Could
that have been done?
MEAD: It would be a most phenomenal trick to do that. I
don't think it would be possible. I think he's talking about things that he actually remembers .... In our effort to remember
something, sometimes we may say, well, I think so-and so,
and as we think about it we come to believe it. So there
might be a few details that are not precisely as happened.
But I think basically the story as he tells it is what he is
honestly reporting.
SCHMIT: For example, the story about his trip to the Southfork
ranch with Larry King, during the Republican national
convention, to be sexually abused, do you believe that
story?
MEAD: Yes.
Finally, the credibility of Paul Bonacci is bolstered by his
own action in April of 1986, two years before there was a
Franklin case, when he reported to the Omaha Police Department
and to officials of his high school, that he was abused
by Harold Andersen, Larry King, Alan Baer, and others. Henry
Rosenthal, then Bonacci's attorney, spoke to the Franklin committee
about this on June 21, 1990.
ROSENTHAL: I talked to his people at school, you know,
because I-I had some severe doubts about this fellow telling
me about that. But his problem-one day he went kind of
outer space in school and they thought it was drugs and it
really wasn't. This stuff was really starting to work on him.
He just did not want to recruit anymore for Mr. Baer.
SENATOR LABEDZ: He told us that.
ROSENTHAL: But I talked to the school officials. You are
talking about assistant principal at school, how many people,
4,000 students. I talked to his head counselor and they said
it's absolutely true. They phone the police department and
said he's in the hospital, are you going out to interview him?
"No, we have closed the case." When he mentioned those
prominent people, those people [school officials] told me
you could just see like they closed their eyes and their books
and was gone
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