A chilling exposé of corporate corruption and government cover-ups, this account of a nationwide child-trafficking and pedophilia ring in the United States tells a sordid tale of corruption in high places. The scandal originally surfaced during an investigation into Omaha, Nebraska's failed Franklin Federal Credit Union and took the author beyond the Midwest and ultimately to Washington, DC. Implicating businessmen, senators, major media corporations, the CIA, and even the venerable Boys Town organization, this extensively researched report includes firsthand interviews with key witnesses and explores a controversy that has received scant media attention. Nick Bryant is a journalist whose work largely focuses on the plight of disadvantaged children in the United States. His mainstream and investigative journalism has been featured in Gear , Playboy , The Reader , and on Salon.com. He is the coauthor of America's Children: Triumph of Tragedy . He lives in New York City. The Franklin Scandal A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse and Betrayal By Nick Bryant Trine Day LLC Copyright © 2011 Nick Bryant All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-9777953-5-2 Contents Publisher's Foreword, Dedication, Acknowledgements, INTRODUCTION, PROLOGUE – The Finders of Lost Children, 1. WEBS OF CORRUPTION, 2. CARADORI, 3. BOYS TOWN, 4. A CAREFULLY CRAFTED HOAX, 5. WASHINGTON, DC, 6. STATE V. OWEN, EPILOGUE – What is the Reality?, Timeline, Documentation, Appendix, Sources, Index, CHAPTER 1 Webs of Corruption I left Nebraska utterly devastated. I was beginning to believe that Franklin had been a killing field for the souls of innumerable children. The documentation I garnered revealed scores of victims and the harassment I encountered reinforced my burgeoning beliefs. Over the years, I've wavered on several investigative stories in the face of doubt — I wasn't convinced the stories were noble enough to stalk with reckless abandon. But the evil represented by Franklin unshackled me from any fetters of doubt. I wouldn't be able to return to Nebraska for eight months, but in the meantime I started digging into the background of one Larry King. King's father, Lawrence King, Sr., grew up in Omaha and was tagged with the nickname of "Poncho" as a youngster. The nickname followed him into adulthood, and, as Poncho King came of age in the 1920s and 1930s, Omaha, the county seat of Douglas County, was on its way to becoming the world's leading livestock market — it overtook Chicago in 1955. In Poncho King's later teens, he found employment in the meatpacking plants of the Omaha stockyards — like thousands of young men hailing from Omaha. Poncho King went to work in Omaha's Swift meatpacking plant; the Swift Company would employ him for over forty years. He started at Swift on the bottom rung, skinning hogs, but gradually worked his way into a supervisory position. The founder of the Swift Company, Gustavas Swift, had revolutionized the meatpacking industry in the 1880s by using refrigerated rail cars to transport dressed livestock east. Swift's little trick was to harvest ice from the Great Lakes each winter and then build ice stations along the route. The sprawling Union Pacific Railroad was also headquartered in Omaha, and it was integral to providing the infrastructure for Omaha's booming meat industry. Poncho King married his teenage sweetheart, Vineta Swancey, in 1942, and they ultimately settled into a clapboard house that was flanked by the roar of the Union Pacific Railroad and the wafting tang of the stockyards on the periphery of Omaha's economically depressed North Side. Poncho and Vineta King had six children; Lawrence Jr. was their second child and oldest son — he was born September 7, 1944. The Kings were devout Presbyterians, and they attended North Omaha's Calvin Presbyterian Church every Sunday. Larry Jr. was a tall, husky kid who was an excellent student and talented singer. King's parents encouraged him to take singing lessons as a youth, and he was a notable fixture in the church's choir. As a student at Omaha's Central High School, King worked as a waiter at the ritzy Blackstone Hotel. The downtown hotel was a "symbol of elegance" and kept a small fleet of limousines for visiting dignitaries. The Blackstone Hotel offered the teenage, working-class King his first portal into the dazzling world of the rich. King went on to graduate from Central High School in 1962 and then enrolled at Omaha University, where he eventually took up pre-med studies. Becoming disillusioned with premed, he signed up for a four-year hitch in the Air Force in 1965, rising to the rank of sergeant. During his stint in the Air Force, King married Alice Ploche, whom he met in Chicago. A 1973 article in the Omaha Sun was the first media mention I found of Larry King. According to the article, the Air Force sent King to Thailand to be an "information specialist" as the Vietnam War was raging, and he handl