A Carefully Crafted Hoax
The grand jury acknowledged that Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci had been abused, but concluded that the adults they accused were innocent. Owen and Bonacci were then indicted on multiple counts of perjury. Alan Baer, one of the prominent Nebraskans originally named by Boner, Owen, Danny King, and Bonacci as a pedophiliac perpetrator, was also indicted on two counts of adult pandering. In a very strange twist, Eulice Washington didn’t recant her allegations about King’s pedophile ring, but she wasn’t indicted on perjury charges.
The Douglas County grand jury report was not only contradictory, but approached the bizarre, quoting Shakespeare’s Henry IV: “Rumor is a pipe, blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures....” Extending the metaphor, the grand jury then named various “rumor mongers” who “played so feverishly on the rumor pipe.” The foreman later admitted that special prosecutor Van Pelt had played an integral role in writing the report. The Franklin subcommittee released a 5-page response denouncing the report, citing its numerous anomalies and contradictions.
After the Douglas County grand jury report was released, the New York Times and other major newspapers reported that the “lurid” tale in Nebraska had been exposed as witch-hunt hysteria. “Carefully Crafted Hoax” headlined the Omaha World-Herald. Though the grand jury found that allegations about King’s pedophilic network had been fabricated, a Lincoln Journal poll concluded that 56% of Nebraskans thought that illegalities had been covered up.
