Dirty Laundry

‘You don't really need to find out
What's going on
You don't really want to know
Just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry’ -Dirty laundry by Don Henley

Long before Jeffrey Epstein and Sean Combs and the talk of sex trafficking was commonplace, there was a story and a cast of characters that most people have never heard about.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s there was The Franklin Scandal.

Investigative journalist Nick Bryant wrote a book about it. (Bryant is the one that dropped Epstein’s black book.)

The story is twofold.

It is a story of financial fraud and a story of a prolific child abuser and trafficker.

The story took place in Omaha Nebraska

The Franklin Scandal is named after the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union in Omaha Nebraska.

It was a credit union marketed toward low-income people.

It was run by a black American man named Lawrence E. King. He was a big deal in his local Republican party. He also served on boards of local charities like the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Clubs. He allegedly owned other local businesses like a bar and restaurant.

Lawrence E. King also had a decent singing voice and sang the National Anthem at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas Texas.

In 1988, The Franklin Community Federal Credit Union was raided and shut down.

Mr. King had embezzled nearly $40 million dollars. He plead guilty in 1991 and was sentenced to a fifteen-year prison term. He served ten years.

But the credit union was merely a front for the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children, some of them in foster care or group homes like Boys Town were many victims claim that Lawrence E. King abused and trafficked them. They also made claims against local prominent figures and even a chief of police.

A lead investigator named Gary Caradori mysteriously died in a plane crash in Illinois in July of 1990. He allegedly obtained photographic evidence to implicate Larry King. The photographs and the briefcase that held them were missing from the crash site.

After numerous abused children and young adults testified about being abused and witnessing satanic rituals (they were called prostitutes during the trial) instead of the abused victims that they were. The allegations were ‘unfounded’. Two of the victims who testified were Alisha Owens, who was 21 years old at the time of the trial and the other was allegedly Paul Bonacci. Owens was unbelievably convicted of perjury in 1991.

The story was deemed a ‘hoax’ in local media circles. The abusers basically got away with it. Lawrence E. King and Paul Bonacci (who was abused but became an abuser) was supposedly responsible for the kidnapping and disappearance of Johnny Gosch who was abducted in Iowa in September of 1982. He was one of the original ‘milk carton’ kids.

This story happened long before the internet was around and is worth looking into. Lots of videos on YouTube if you are interested. The trafficking of humans now is a much bigger and organized by many powerful people. And it has to be more than just a few powerful people involved which is disturbing to think about.

No one should get away with such crimes.

For more info on books by journalist Nick Bryant his website address is: http://nickbryantnyc.com