Franklin Cover Up

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PotatoeEatsFish
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Franklin Cover Up

Post by PotatoeEatsFish »

Last night I listened to a very odd crime podcast about the child prostitution ring led by Larry King. It was very complex with many parts to it. They claimed they had "parties" (that involved torture) in the Twin Towers downtown. Anyone know anything about this?
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by RNcyanide »

I thought it happened in the building they tore down to make way for Think! Primary Care. Other than that, I don't know a whole lot about it.

Otherwise, there's this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_ ... llegations


This had all occurred toward the end of the 'satanic child-sacrifice cults' era in the 80's where everyone was terrified of teachers, daycares, and other random people and businesses abusing and sacrificing children to Satan. There are several instances of these cases across the country and several books were written about the topic, some based on 'first-hand experience,' a phrase that I put in quotation marks because several of these authors were proven to be frauds (in one instance, after one author who claimed that she was a concubine for a satanic priest whose babies were sacrificed in satanic rituals was shown to be a liar, she went on to impersonate a Holocaust survivor). A final anecdote is the case of a daycare worker who was accused by a random woman who was later to diagnosed as schizophrenic to be teaching children black magic and transforming into animals and flying around the room. Children corroborated this story because you can make children say anything, and the man was initially sentenced and the daycare razed to look for the secret caves this witness described, only to find nothing and have a bunch of lawyers fired and the man freed. I think this actually culminated in the most expensive court case in US history.
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RNcyanide
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by RNcyanide »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial

Here's the Wikipedia article about the case I described at the end of my lengthy post. I got a few of the details wrong, but the gist is there.
When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seems proof like no other that not only does God exist, you're doing his will.

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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by Professor Woland »

This was a thing during the ritual abuse panic. The sorts of stories attached to this case were similar to other hoaxes throughout the country. I think this was pretty thoroughly discredited, but the story reemerges during periods of intense anti-elitism or when stories of real sexual abuse appear in the public.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by GRANDPASMUCKER »

PotatoeEatsFish wrote:Last night I listened to a very odd crime podcast about the child prostitution ring led by Larry King. It was very complex with many parts to it. They claimed they had "parties" (that involved torture) in the Twin Towers downtown. Anyone know anything about this?
King was a big shot in the Republican Party and was friends with many well known people in the city. Kings house was out on a high bluff looking out over the Missouri River just past Hummel Park and it was the site of many a party of the Omaha rich and famous where minors both male and female were reputed to be made available to men. The story was about half B.S but on the other hand where theres smoke theres fire. The child prostitutes basically were messed up poor kids with criminal records as long as your arm so discrediting and destroying their testimony in a court room was easy peasy for the political machine to get done.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by bmt »

I somehow just randomly stumbled upon this case on youtube.

[youtube][/youtube]

Warning for language. This case was slightly before my time, but I am surprised that I had never even heard about it. It is crazy to think that something like this could have possibly happened here. Regardless of the outcome of this case, it really makes me sick to know that child trafficking happens throughout this country and most likely in Omaha too.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by omaha79 »

I agree with Grandpasmucker. I've thoroughly researched this story. This is one of those "where there's smoke, there's fire" situations. While I believe too many conspiracy theorist types have gotten their claws into this and muddied the waters about what may have been real and what wasn't, I do believe some bad stuff happened and alot of people got away with it.

I think the story suffered from the general naivete of the era. People simply didn't believe that such upstanding pillars of the community were capable of these sorts of crimes and predilictions. However, the internet age has shed some much needed light on similar cases and proven that the rich and powerful are no more immune to these types of sick desires than the average person. If anything, they are more dangerous due to their ability to use their power and influence to shield themselves from justice. Look no further than the Sandusky case, or the story of Dennis Hastert to see how someone can use money and influence to enable a lifetime of crimes perpetrated on helpless victims.

Look at the characters involved in this case. Peter Citron was later convicted of the very crimes of child molestation that no one would believe when it came to the Franklin case. If you talk to anyone that knew Alan Baer, he was an odd individual. He was also supposedly a man hiding deep inside a self made closet and had interests that were somewhat bizarre. King was wrapped up in all sorts of illegal things. We are supposed to believe his life was so dirty and corrupt in every other facet, but these kids were lying about only one aspect of his activities? It doesn't jive. As for the rest like Wadman and Anderson, if things were going on at parties, there is a sense of normalization that can occur when you see things going on around you.

Of note to me is that none of the accusers, who all came from the type of poor background that King supposedly preyed on, ever recanted the basic structure of their stories: that they were bought and paid for to be used by wealthy men at high end parties. In fact, it's almost unprecented. The stories were so outlandish...and the Omaha World Herald had such control of the narrative...that the accusers were basically told to recant or go to jail. Alisha Own and Paul Bonacci refused to recant and were held in contempt of court. I've heard that in the years since, they've just tried to stay out of the limelight, but none have recanted the story even after exiting jail. You don't often see the accusers threatened with jail time even when their stories are proven false...see Duke Lacrosse. If anything, I think they were fed some things to say that pushed it to the ritualistic side and that clouded everything. DeCamp may be to blame for that.

In any event, there was quite a bit of smoke.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by ricko »

Several years ago my sister sent me the book about the Franklin scandal, and it sat on my bookshelf for years before I got around to reading it. I didn't know what to make of it. I had a friend in the Omaha gay community in the 70's 80's who used to relate rumors about some of the people involved, long before the events unfolded in the press, so I considered what was revealed in the book to be at least partly true. Several years after I moved to the DC area I met, through a gay peer-counseling group, a couple of men who said they were victims of sex trafficking as young teens. The stories they told were shocking, and involved people (ostensibly "straight married" types) who were very high up in the Conservative movement/politics in the 1980's. Was what they were telling me true? Dunno. Most of these kids came from poor white neighborhoods in large cities, which is why they were easily intimidated and hardly considered credible by the authorities; but, then again, this was an environment of confidentiality, which might lend some credence to what I was told.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by GRANDPASMUCKER »

omaha79 wrote:I agree with Grandpasmucker. I've thoroughly researched this story. This is one of those "where there's smoke, there's fire" situations. While I believe too many conspiracy theorist types have gotten their claws into this and muddied the waters about what may have been real and what wasn't, I do believe some bad stuff happened and alot of people got away with it.

I think the story suffered from the general naivete of the era. People simply didn't believe that such upstanding pillars of the community were capable of these sorts of crimes and predilictions. However, the internet age has shed some much needed light on similar cases and proven that the rich and powerful are no more immune to these types of sick desires than the average person. If anything, they are more dangerous due to their ability to use their power and influence to shield themselves from justice. Look no further than the Sandusky case, or the story of Dennis Hastert to see how someone can use money and influence to enable a lifetime of crimes perpetrated on helpless victims.

Look at the characters involved in this case. Peter Citron was later convicted of the very crimes of child molestation that no one would believe when it came to the Franklin case. If you talk to anyone that knew Alan Baer, he was an odd individual. He was also supposedly a man hiding deep inside a self made closet and had interests that were somewhat bizarre. King was wrapped up in all sorts of illegal things. We are supposed to believe his life was so dirty and corrupt in every other facet, but these kids were lying about only one aspect of his activities? It doesn't jive. As for the rest like Wadman and Anderson, if things were going on at parties, there is a sense of normalization that can occur when you see things going on around you.

Of note to me is that none of the accusers, who all came from the type of poor background that King supposedly preyed on, ever recanted the basic structure of their stories: that they were bought and paid for to be used by wealthy men at high end parties. In fact, it's almost unprecented. The stories were so outlandish...and the Omaha World Herald had such control of the narrative...that the accusers were basically told to recant or go to jail. Alisha Own and Paul Bonacci refused to recant and were held in contempt of court. I've heard that in the years since, they've just tried to stay out of the limelight, but none have recanted the story even after exiting jail. You don't often see the accusers threatened with jail time even when their stories are proven false...see Duke Lacrosse. If anything, I think they were fed some things to say that pushed it to the ritualistic side and that clouded everything. DeCamp may be to blame for that.

In any event, there was quite a bit of smoke.

Peter Citron was the poor guy in the crowd of affluent Franklin suspects. He was an entertainment reporter for the World Herald and was lucky if he made 30,000 a year. Peter Citron had never came out of the closet but tales of his debauchery had circulated for years before Franklin ever came about. I don't think Peter Citron could afford to hang and roll too much with the rest of the Franklin suspects. Citron had a big house by Elmwood park and his mode of operation was to invite young teenage guys over to his house to watch movies and drink a few beers and smoke weed. After the Franklin story hit a couple of kids right from the neighborhood he lived in stepped up and told stories of how Citron had invited them over for his reindeer games. Citron was quickly arrested and spent years in prison for those charges not the Franklin accusations. I have a friend who told the story about how when he was 16 Citron invited him over to his house to watch some movies and smoke some weed. My friend says he and Citron went and rented some VCR tapes and took them back to Citrons house to watch. My friend says they watched the first movie and then Citron produced a joint and they began smoking it. My friend was sitting in Lazy Boy and smoking the joint and Citron got up and left the room. A moment later as my friend was sitting in that Lazy Boy smoking the joint Citron snuck up behind him and all of a sudden ran his fingers through my friends hair! My friend says he jumped up and said I got to go now Bye! Citron was not a fall guy but of all the guys accused in Franklin he was the least able to buy his way out of it or pull any strings.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by omaha79 »

GRANDPASMUCKER wrote:
omaha79 wrote:I agree with Grandpasmucker. I've thoroughly researched this story. This is one of those "where there's smoke, there's fire" situations. While I believe too many conspiracy theorist types have gotten their claws into this and muddied the waters about what may have been real and what wasn't, I do believe some bad stuff happened and alot of people got away with it.

I think the story suffered from the general naivete of the era. People simply didn't believe that such upstanding pillars of the community were capable of these sorts of crimes and predilictions. However, the internet age has shed some much needed light on similar cases and proven that the rich and powerful are no more immune to these types of sick desires than the average person. If anything, they are more dangerous due to their ability to use their power and influence to shield themselves from justice. Look no further than the Sandusky case, or the story of Dennis Hastert to see how someone can use money and influence to enable a lifetime of crimes perpetrated on helpless victims.

Look at the characters involved in this case. Peter Citron was later convicted of the very crimes of child molestation that no one would believe when it came to the Franklin case. If you talk to anyone that knew Alan Baer, he was an odd individual. He was also supposedly a man hiding deep inside a self made closet and had interests that were somewhat bizarre. King was wrapped up in all sorts of illegal things. We are supposed to believe his life was so dirty and corrupt in every other facet, but these kids were lying about only one aspect of his activities? It doesn't jive. As for the rest like Wadman and Anderson, if things were going on at parties, there is a sense of normalization that can occur when you see things going on around you.

Of note to me is that none of the accusers, who all came from the type of poor background that King supposedly preyed on, ever recanted the basic structure of their stories: that they were bought and paid for to be used by wealthy men at high end parties. In fact, it's almost unprecented. The stories were so outlandish...and the Omaha World Herald had such control of the narrative...that the accusers were basically told to recant or go to jail. Alisha Own and Paul Bonacci refused to recant and were held in contempt of court. I've heard that in the years since, they've just tried to stay out of the limelight, but none have recanted the story even after exiting jail. You don't often see the accusers threatened with jail time even when their stories are proven false...see Duke Lacrosse. If anything, I think they were fed some things to say that pushed it to the ritualistic side and that clouded everything. DeCamp may be to blame for that.

In any event, there was quite a bit of smoke.

Peter Citron was the poor guy in the crowd of affluent Franklin suspects. He was an entertainment reporter for the World Herald and was lucky if he made 30,000 a year. Peter Citron had never came out of the closet but tales of his debauchery had circulated for years before Franklin ever came about. I don't think Peter Citron could afford to hang and roll too much with the rest of the Franklin suspects. Citron had a big house by Elmwood park and his mode of operation was to invite young teenage guys over to his house to watch movies and drink a few beers and smoke weed. After the Franklin story hit a couple of kids right from the neighborhood he lived in stepped up and told stories of how Citron had invited them over for his reindeer games. Citron was quickly arrested and spent years in prison for those charges not the Franklin accusations. I have a friend who told the story about how when he was 16 Citron invited him over to his house to watch some movies and smoke some weed. My friend says he and Citron went and rented some VCR tapes and took them back to Citrons house to watch. My friend says they watched the first movie and then Citron produced a joint and they began smoking it. My friend was sitting in Lazy Boy and smoking the joint and Citron got up and left the room. A moment later as my friend was sitting in that Lazy Boy smoking the joint Citron snuck up behind him and all of a sudden ran his fingers through my friends hair! My friend says he jumped up and said I got to go now Bye! Citron was not a fall guy but of all the guys accused in Franklin he was the least able to buy his way out of it or pull any strings.
Yeah. That was my point about Citron and it's kinda mind boggling if you think about it. These kids were supposed to be completely unreliable in naming these powerful men at these parties. So, unreliable that they were held in contempt of court and thrown in jail. However, the minute they got other kids unconnected to the overall party ring to finger him, he was convicted.

Crazy if you think about it. I honestly can't think of another case where accusers were treated this way. These kids were made to be the criminals for alledging heinous crimes. The accused were the victims.

The OWH controlled the narrative from start to finish. One day, when the sphere of influence of these men is compltely gone, I could see some crazy stuff coming out.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by Omababe »

GRANDPASMUCKER wrote:Peter Citron was the poor guy in the crowd of affluent Franklin suspects. {munch} Citron was not a fall guy but of all the guys accused in Franklin he was the least able to buy his way out of it or pull any strings.
A lot of this unfolded in the decade right after I came to Omaha when I was working for an ad agency. I remember there being two items of "common knowledge", those being that there was a somewhat exclusive group of very powerful people in Omaha who regularly, uh "partied" with the younger set and as the song goes "Talk is cheap-a when the story is good, and the tales grow taller on down the line." :) The other was that Peter C. had a "thing" for younger kids, and yes, had regular "private parties" at his Elmwood residence. We had two first-hand accounts at the agency, one guy who had served under Citron as an unpaid volunteer "teen editor" years before when he was with a smaller paper, and another who was one of his "prom dates", who described the ordeal as "creepy" and the like.

I can remember statements in the office such as "That guy (Citron) is gonna fall, and when he falls he's gonna fall hard!" I understand that a p*ssed-off parent finally had enough and started blowing whistles. The feeling was that Peter was kind of on the periphery of that "party crowd" but was at some distance.

If there was a fall, uh, "guy" (girl) it certainly had to be that young lady who was put through the meatgrinder and finally charged with perjury. IIRC the whole thing cooled down quickly and found a nice resting place under a rug following the suspicious death of one of the investigators.
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by jessep28 »

Where was Mort Sullivan and his Faxtel 2000 in all of this to save these children?
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Re: Franklin Cover Up

Post by omaha79 »

Omababe wrote:
GRANDPASMUCKER wrote:Peter Citron was the poor guy in the crowd of affluent Franklin suspects. {munch} Citron was not a fall guy but of all the guys accused in Franklin he was the least able to buy his way out of it or pull any strings.
A lot of this unfolded in the decade right after I came to Omaha when I was working for an ad agency. I remember there being two items of "common knowledge", those being that there was a somewhat exclusive group of very powerful people in Omaha who regularly, uh "partied" with the younger set and as the song goes "Talk is cheap-a when the story is good, and the tales grow taller on down the line." :) The other was that Peter C. had a "thing" for younger kids, and yes, had regular "private parties" at his Elmwood residence. We had two first-hand accounts at the agency, one guy who had served under Citron as an unpaid volunteer "teen editor" years before when he was with a smaller paper, and another who was one of his "prom dates", who described the ordeal as "creepy" and the like.

I can remember statements in the office such as "That guy (Citron) is gonna fall, and when he falls he's gonna fall hard!" I understand that a p*ssed-off parent finally had enough and started blowing whistles. The feeling was that Peter was kind of on the periphery of that "party crowd" but was at some distance.

If there was a fall, uh, "guy" (girl) it certainly had to be that young lady who was put through the meatgrinder and finally charged with perjury. IIRC the whole thing cooled down quickly and found a nice resting place under a rug following the suspicious death of one of the investigators.
If DeCamp is to be believed, the investigator: Gary Caradori, died under suspicious circumstances as well. This may be embellished for the book as well, but supposedly he was about to fly home from Chicago after following some leads and made a call saying, "I got them. I got those bleepety bleeps. I have the evidence right here." Of course, his plane crashed on the way home and none of the supposed evidence was found. I can't comment either way, but those who believe in the conspiracy theories firmly believe his single engine plane was sabotaged.
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