News came this week that a Portuguese ambassador was among seven defendants convicted of using orphanages to rape and abuse dozens of teenage boys. The outcome of the six-year trial sent shockwaves through the country’s political elite.
To most people Portugal's state-run orphanages seemed like a safe haven for thousands of children who had been robbed of their parents. They were called the Casa Pia, or Houses of the Pious.
But for an elite paedophile ring, which included a former ambassador and a prominent television celebrity, Casa Pia orphanages were something entirely different. They were supermarkets stocked with children to abuse. Yesterday, at the conclusion of the longest trial in Portugal's history, seven defendants were convicted of using the orphanages to rape and abuse scores of teenage boys in a case that has sent shockwaves through the country's political elite and raised serious concerns over the efficiency of Portugal's judiciary. Six of the seven were given jail terms of between five and 18 years.
Whereas the Portuguese victims were able to see their abusers face justice, a similar episode in the United States resulted in the legal system being turned on its head, handing down a 25 year sentence against one of the teenagers who was raped.
The allegations surfaced during the investigation of a Federal Credit Union in Nebraska. The tale, chronicled in a book released last year called The Franklin Scandal, reaches the upper levels of US government. An unreleased documentary funded by the Discovery Channel examined the case:
Reports came out of the Nebraska inquiry that kidnapped foster care children were being flown out of Omaha to perform sexual favors. The child prostitution ring ran through several major cities, including the nation’s capital.
The source who spoke of the file's contents said that it reflected efforts dating back several months to spur various investigative agencies to look into the possibility of abuse. And besides the report of auctioning of the services of a teen-ager, the source said, it contains information from other interviews, including some from a child care specialist, Julie Walters, who moved from Omaha late last year to take a position as a juvenile probation officer in Cincinnati.
Mrs. Walters, reached by telephone, told of interviews with two teen-agers who, she said, described physical cruelty to children at foster care homes as well as sexual abuse of teen-agers at parties in Omaha, New York, Chicago and Washington.
Earlier this week, she told an Omaha reporter of a teen-ager's description of a party involving sex between ''more than two people, same sex and opposite sex.''
''It's a horrible thing for me professionally and emotionally,'' she said in the telephone interview, ''to go through watching kids disclosing things that are very traumatic for them, verbalizing situations in which they were victims and saying they knew that nothing would ever be done about it.''
Accounts of the scandal began to emerge as George H.W. Bush entered his first and only term of office. Multiple sources revealed that underaged prostitutes had been given an unauthorized midnight tour of the White House. It would later come out that at least one of them had been taken from Boys Town, Nebraska
Secret Service furloughs third White House guard
Jerry Seper, and Michael Hedges The Washington Times; Wednesday, July 26, 1989
Officer Reginald A. deGueldre and other suspended officers were on duty when the late-night White House tours occurred, including one on July 3, 1988, that reportedly included two male prostitutes.
The Secret Service investigation, authorities said, is aimed at determining if White House security was breached during late-night tours arranged by Craig J. Spence and attended by several of his friends.
According to several people who were on the White House tours arranged by Mr. Spence, the Washington lobbyist put together at least four tours of the presidential mansion last year, two of which, June 29 and Nov. 22, he attended personally. The June 29 tour, according to several of Mr. Spence’s friends, occurred after the Washington lobbyist visited the ABC television studios of Nightline and introduced a 15-year-old boy, identified as his son, Will, to anchorman Ted Koppel.
The teenage prostitution ring touched on heavy political hitters including administration officials and military officers. Compounding the problem, the Republican lobbyist featured in the child escort sting was working on behalf of foreign clients, including the Japanese prime minister. He had blackmailed a wide cross-section of the D.C. establishment.
POWER BROKER SERVED DRUGS, SEX AT PARTIES BUGGED FOR BLACKMAIL
Michael Hedges and Jerry Seper The Washington Times; Friday, June 30, 1989
Craig J. Spence, an enigmatic figure who threw glittery parties for key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, media stars and top military officers, bugged the gatherings to compromise guests, provided cocaine, blackmailed some associates and spent up to $20,000 a month on male prostitutes, according to friends, acquaintances and records...
Among the clients identified in hundreds of credit-card vouchers obtained by The Washington Times - and identified by male prostitutes and escort operators - are government officials, locally based U.S. military officers, businessmen, lawyers, bankers, congressional aides, media representatives and other professionals...
Mr. Spence made good contacts in Japan and among Chinese expatriates, often bragging of his close association with former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and appearing in public with a Chinese businessman who once served as an unofficial representative of Communist China in Washington, sources said.
According to retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham, officials were concerned that the situation would be used to extract state secrets out of compromised insiders. One example of this was when Craig Spence’s client, Japanese politician Motoo Shina, was able to obtain specifications on an American war-fighting jet.
SPENCE AS MUCH AN ENIGMA IN DEATH AS HE WAS IN LIFE
Jerry Seper, and Michael Hedges The Washington Times; Monday, November 13, 1989
...Following the August interview in New York, Mr. Spence returned to Washington and reportedly stayed with friends. He maintained a high profile on the bar and restaurant circuit, and was spotted at several places during the past two months.
Meanwhile, several members of Congress, federal officials, military officers and others have told The Times that they are concerned that the lavish parties and Japanese-sponsored seminars thrown by Mr. Spence, at which the elite of Washington and officials from Japan, China and elsewhere mingled, might have compromised U.S. security.
Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, Maryland Republican, for one, recently questioned the former lobbyist's ties to the Japanese government in a speech on the floor of the House. Citing news articles in the United States and Japan, Mrs. Bentley asked whether plans for the F-16 jet had been transferred by Mr. Spence to a Japanese government official, Motoo Shiina...
The Japan Self Air Defense Force would use the technology acquired through Spence as a basis for production of its own military aircraft.
In 1987, the JASDF selected a variant of the F-16C as the Japanese FS-X aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi F-1 aircraft, and in 1988 Mitsubishi was selected as prime contractor for the aircraft, which became known as the F-2. The programme involved technology transfer from the USA to Japan, and responsibility for cost sharing was split 60% by Japan and 40% by USA.
As Attorney John DeCamp indicated in his book The Franklin Cover-Up, the scandal was too sensitive to be allowed to see the light of day. The case file, which included over 20,000 documents, was classified and the investigation buried. Within months of the first press reports, Craig Spence was found dead in a hotel room, of unknown cause. The former CIA chief who was a personal friend and adviser for DeCamp, William Colby, drowned near his home in a “canoe accident”.
The question of whether other lobbyists received political favors through the child prostitution-related blackmail remains a mystery...
Note: This diary replaces the previous post on the topic, which was edited due to some commenters’ concerns.