A very knowledgeable source involved with what became known as the “Franklin Scandal” told WMR that Caradori flew to Chicago ostensibly to attend the All Star game on July 10 at Wrigley Field. In reality, the trip to the game was a cover for Caradori to meet with a source who handed him photographs that proved that Nebraskan children, some from the famed Boy’s Town orphanage, were being used for the sexual gratification of important political leaders in Washington, including Vice President and President George H W Bush.

Caradori phoned his wife and another investigator shortly before the All-Star game and told them the same thing: “I got what I came after. I got ’em by the balls. I’ve got pictures. I will take them to the game and bring them back to Nebraska.”

When Caradori began to follow the money behind the Franklin scandal, he discovered two things: the Franklin Credit Union was being used by the White House and CIA to launder money for the Iran-contra affair and King and his associates were given a free ride to sexually traffic in and molest children, including many procured from Boy’s Town.

One of those implicated in the Franklin scandal was Housing and Urban Development Secretary Sam Pierce. At the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, King held a $1 million reception for Pierce. However, King’s salary at the time was $14,000 a year and the actual cost of the reception was $300,000. The difference, $700,000, went into a slush fund that was laundered by the Franklin Credit Union for various “activities” sponsored by the CIA and White House.

On July 11, Caradori took off in his private plane from Chicago en route to Nebraska. Witnesses on the ground said they saw a flash in the sky followed by an explosion. Initial news reports stated that Caradori’s aircraft exploded in flight and then crashed. However, subsequent news reports were altered and claimed the aircraft exploded upon impact with the ground. Caradori and his son were killed in the crash. The local Sheriff’s office reported that scattered in the wreckage were child pornographic photographs. The FBI arrived and began systematically removing the photographs, debris, and Caradori’s briefcase. Meanwhile, FBI agents in Lincoln, Nebraska entered Caradori’s office and seized his files. Another FBI agent showed up at the office of a Nebraska state official investigating the Franklin case and demanded he turn over his files. The state official told the FBI agent to “get the hell out.”

The Bush White House immediately began covering up the Franklin scandal and put pressure on the remaining Nebraska state investigators. The FBI used the Kansas City mob to intimidate high-level witnesses and investigators of the Franklin scandal. One of the lead investigators also told WMR, “the FBI killed Caradori . . . they put the bomb on his airplane.”

An attempt to hire former CIA director William Colby to lead a state of Nebraska investigation of the Franklin scandal failed in a legislative committee 4 to 3 vote. Instead, the committee appointed attorney Kirk Naylor as its chief investigator. A major figure involved in investigating Franklin told WMR that Naylor was the most incompetent person the committee could have found to lead the investigation. Colby was a Vietnam War colleague of Nebraska state Senator John De Camp, one of major investigators of the Franklin scandal. Colby reportedly was ready to expose the CIA’s own involvement in the use of child prostitutes for the purposes of political and diplomatic blackmail. Colby died in a suspicious canoeing accident on the Chesapeake Bay on April 27, 1996.

Monsignor Robert Hupp, the Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Omaha, a former Navy chaplain, and, in 1976, the first-ever clergy member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, had reported in the early 1970s to his bishop that there was sexual abuse at Boy’s Town that even involved a priest murdering a boy. Hupp was later named the head of Boy’s Town, ostensibly to keep him quiet. Hupp was in charge of Boy’s Town until the late 1980s, when the Franklin scandal first hit the front pages. Eventually, even after stepping down as the head of the orphanage, Hupp was forced to leave Boy’s Town altogether. WMR has learned that in 2003 a longtime supporter of Boy’s Town allowed Hupp to move into his cabin in Mausten, Wisconsin after being forced to leave the facilities at Boy’s Town. A reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, a newspaper owned by Nebraska billionaire Warren Buffett and which always had a skeptical view of the Franklin scandal, volunteered to drive Hupp to Wisconsin. Upon arriving at the cabin, the reporter prepared dinner for Hupp. The retired monsignor who broke the Catholic Church’s silence on its role in the Franklin scandal, died in his sleep that same night.

The iconic Washington Times front page that capped off the Franklin scandal’s sporadic and spotty news coverage.

Anyone who believes the Franklin Scandal and Cover-up is over and done with would be dead wrong. On January 20, 2012, Carol Stitt, the 29-year director of the Nebraska Foster Care Review Board, an individual who aggressively protected foster care children in Nebraska from sexual perverts and other undesirable foster parents, was dismissed by her own board of directors. The 11-member board had been stacked by loyalists of Republican Governor Dave Heineman whose goal it was to oust Stitt. As with the constant intimidation of witnesses involved in Franklin, Stitt also found herself investigated by the federal government’s Office of Special Counsel for allegedly violating the Hatch Act by attending a 2006 political campaign rally for Republican and football coach legend Tom Osborne. Although Stitt, a state employee, would not normally be subject to the rarely-enforced Hatch Act that bans political activity by federal employees, Stitt’s Foster Care Review Board received funds from the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The HHS’s initial complaint against Stitt, which arose from her attendance at the 2006 Osborne rally, began when current GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ben Sasse was serving as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at HHS. From 1996 to 1998, Sasse was one of four tutors/proctors for the U.S. House of Representatives page program. During this time frame, a number of House pages complained of sexual harassment from GOP House members. Representatives Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and Mark Foley (R-FL) were later named as principal harassers of underage male pages. WMR has also learned from a member of the Sasse family that physical and psychological abuse have been rampant in the Sasse family. Senate candidate Sasse, who helped the John Ashcroft Justice Department draw up torture policy along with the CIA, is a home-schooler whose religious beliefs are based on neo-Calvinist fundamentalist Christian Dominionism.

Sasse faces two opponents after coming from the political wilderness to defeat better known and financed GOP candidates in the primary. David Domina, a trial lawyer, is Sasse’s lackluster Democratic opponent, while Dan Buhrdorf is mounting a spirited independent challenge under the Tax Wall Street Party banner.

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