Nick Bryant: “The Franklin scandal” is about an interstate pedophile network that flew kids from coast to coast. What we are seeing with Jeffrey Epstein, we saw in the Franklin scandal, although I think the Franklin pandering network was much, much bigger than Jeffrey Epstein’s network. There were two primary pimps. There was a pimp in Nebraska, Larry King
An Interview with Nick Bryant: Part II – The Epstein Affair
An Interview with Nick Bryant: Part I – The Franklin Scandal:
Warwick Middleton: Could you give us an outline of what you think are the key established facts about what is now called the “Franklin scandal”?
Nick Bryant: “The Franklin scandal” is about an interstate pedophile network that flew kids from coast to coast. What we are seeing with Jeffrey Epstein, we saw in the Franklin scandal, although I think the Franklin pandering network was much, much bigger than Jeffrey Epstein’s network. There were two primary pimps. There was a pimp in Nebraska, Larry King. He was getting children that had fallen through the cracks, from foster-care homes, from Boy’s Town Orphanage and from some other institutions. There was another pimp living in Washington, DC, who was involved in this, Craig Spence, who had his home wired for audio-visual blackmail. Anybody who took part in any of those parties at Craig Spence’s home was definitely blackmailed.
Social services ultimately found out about that network and they went to both state and federal law enforcement. These social service personnel were simply ignored by both federal and state law enforcement – just ignored. However, ultimately, there was an investigation because one of the accused pedophiles, Larry King, had embezzled $40 million from the Franklin Savings and Loan, which he was manager of. They formed a sub-committee to look at King’s embezzlement of money. And as soon as the committee formed, the social services personnel went and said, “Larry King is a thief but he’s also a pedophilic pimp.” And then they started to look into it and that’s when things started to happen…
Warwick Middleton: What does it say about the process that leading politicians within the state don’t have confidence in their own state police force to investigate a matter like that?
Nick Bryant: Well, it shows how badly state and federal law enforcement had been corrupted with Lawrence King. We saw that with Jeffrey Epstein too. It’s the same type of corruption. And, ultimately if those senators hadn’t been unwilling to back down I wouldn’t have written the book. And my career would probably have been a lot more lucrative than it is now! (laughs)
Anyway, those senators hired an investigator named Gary Caradori, who was an amazing investigator. He found additional victims and videotaped them. He had 21 hours of videotaped victim testimony, and that testimony was given to both state and federal law enforcement. They could no longer deny or ignore that Lawrence King ran a pedophile network. So, it had gone to a whole new level and that required a completely new and improved cover-up – a much bigger cover-up. At that point there were some very mysterious deaths, including the investigator, Gary Caradori. His plane disintegrated over Lee County, Illinois. I think he got some really critical evidence that was going to blow the thing wide open.
There were also two grand juries that were corrupted. One of them went for two and a half months and found that there was no child abuse and they indicted the victims of child abuse for crimes, for perjury. It was pretty amazing. Two of those kids would not back down – Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci. Alisha was indicted on eight counts of perjury and was looking at 160 years (in prison), and Paul was indicted on three counts of perjury and was looking at 60 years, but they would not back down, which I find pretty amazing – that those two kids would just refuse to back down.
Warwick Middleton: You mentioned Gary Caradori. What are the key bits of evidence regarding what most likely happened to him?
Nick Bryant: He flew to Chicago under the auspices of taking his son to an American Baseball League game. This was in 1990.
In Chicago he met with Rusty Nelson, who was a child pornographer and also, I think, a blackmail photographer. I spent a lot of time with Rusty. He’s kind of an unsavory guy. But in an investigation like this, you have to spend a lot of time with unsavory people. It’s just the way it is.
Rusty said that he had given pictures to Gary Caradori of the pedophilic exploits of King and the other powerful people when they met in Chicago. I’ve have four points of corroboration, other than Nelson, that Gary Caradori did get pictures in Chicago. Caradori was flying back to Lincoln, Nebraska when his plane inexplicably broke up over Lee County, Illinois. He and his eight year old son were killed. And then the pictures were never discovered. In my book “The Franklin Scandal” I dig into the weeds about very strange things that went on in the Gary Caradori investigation – all through the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board. I firmly believe that Gary Caradori’s death was a homicide. I don’t have too many doubts about it.
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