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Editor, The Konformist
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http://www.konformist.com/2001/pedophocracy5.htm
The Pedophocracy, Part V:
It Couldn't Happen Here
By David McGowan
(McGowan is the author of Derailing Democracy and Understanding the F-
Word,and is also the administrator of the website The Center for an
Informed America)
Prosecutor Dan Casey: "Did you exercise any kind of mind control over
your wife in order to get her to have sexual contact?"
Frank Fuster: "If I had that power, you think I would use it against
� ?
You know ... I don't ... I have never. I'm a normal human being."
On August 8, 1984, Bobby Dean stood on the front lawn of the Fuster
home in the Country Walk housing development - a picture-perfect,
planned community of relatively upscale suburban homes in Dade
County, Florida. By all appearances, this was a small slice of
paradise � an oasis untouched by the grim realities of American
society.
On this day though, Dean had a loaded gun in his waistband and he
fully intended to use it. He was there to finish the job that someone
else had failed to complete on December 18 of 1980. On that day, an
unidentified assailant had confronted Francisco Fuster Escalona (aka
Frank Fuster) at his place of business and shot him once in the side
of the head.
Fuster survived the attack, which he explained to the police as a
botched robbery, though the officers thought it looked more like an
attempted execution. Dean didn't get the chance to make another
attempt; police were on the scene in short order to arrest him.
Fuster himself surrendered to police two days later in response to
the issuance of an arrest warrant. He had been under investigation
following accusations by neighborhood parents that he and his wife,
Iliana, had been brutally abusing their children while in the trusted
care of the Fuster's babysitting service � run out of their Country
Walk home.
Fuster had, shall we say, rather questionable qualifications to run a
day care center. On January 16, 1969, Fuster pumped two shots into
the heart of a fellow motorist in New York City, killing him
instantly. An off-duty police officer was, curiously enough, an
eyewitness to the summary execution.
Even more curiously, Fuster chambered another round and pointed his
gun directly at the armed officer � and yet wasn't shot. He was
arrested though, and tried and convicted before the year was out. On
Halloween day (needless to say, yet another occult holiday), he was
sentenced to a ten year prison term. He was back on the streets in
less than four, after which he received `psychiatric care.'
In November of 1982, he was convicted again � this time of a lewd
assault on a nine-year-old girl. Despite being his second felony
conviction, Fuster was sentenced to just two years probation. It was
while on probation for the child molestation conviction that Fuster
and his underage wife started up the babysitting service.
His probation officer apparently had no problem with this business
venture, although it brought Fuster into unsupervised contact with at
least fifty kids. At least thirty of them were horrifically abused.
Fuster's probation officer also had no problem with the fact that
Frank had self-terminated his court-ordered psychiatric treatment in
August of 1983.
No one really seems to have been too concerned about Fuster's
babysitting service, which - in addition to being run by a convicted
child molester - was operating without proper licensing and in
violation of local zoning laws. Commercial enterprises were expressly
forbidden in the residential community.
Nevertheless, the service operated with the full knowledge of the
entity managing the complex. In fact, Fuster's service used the name
Country Walk Babysitting Service, implying that his was an officially
sanctioned service provided for the community.
The management company, Arvida, denied there were ever any official
links to the Fuster operation after Frank's past and present
activities were revealed. This, of course, was to be expected. Given
that Arvida was a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, it wouldn't
really do to be perceived as having connections to a child
molestation operation.
The fact remains though that the company took no actions against
Fuster for the illegal expropriation of the `Country Walk' name or
for violating zoning regulations. Dade County also took a hands-off
approach to the Fuster business enterprise. Despite the fact that
Frank lacked other required licenses, the convicted murderer was
issued an occupational license to run the babysitting service.
Detective Donna Meznarich was the first police investigator sent to
look into the allegations being made by the Country Walk parents. She
was openly skeptical of the charges before she even knew what they
actually were. The parents felt that she came calling with an
unmistakable attitude of disbelief.
Nevertheless, enough evidence quickly emerged to issue an arrest
warrant for Frank Fuster for probation violations. Considerably more
evidence could have been gathered had police conducted a timely
search of the Fuster home. Facing imminent arrest, Fuster was
observed by his Country Walk neighbors hastily packing boxes into a
white van.
Fearing the loss of valuable physical evidence, parents contacted the
police � who failed to respond. The detective that disregarded the
parents' concerns that day was Donna Meznarich. She also executed the
search warrant the next day, on a home largely - though not entirely -
cleansed of incriminating evidence.
With Fuster safely in custody, the stories told by the child victims
grew increasingly disturbing. They told of being forced to play "pee-
pee" and "ca-ca" games. A photo would be produced at trial showing
Fuster's young son Jaime - one of the most severely abused of the
victims - sitting in a bathroom smeared thickly with excrement.
The children also told of being forced to drink "magic punch," later
revealed by Fuster's wife to be a mixture of Gatorade, urine, and
various drugs. It would be revealed at trial that a close friend of
the Fuster family owned a pharmacy, providing a reliable source for
drugs. This friend was particularly close to Fuster's mother and
uncle.
The children also told of having their lives threatened repeatedly,
and of having their parents' lives threatened as well. They had been
compelled to play a game, they said, called "who's gonna lose their
head?" This game frequently ended with the ritual decapitation of an
animal, typically a bird.
Finally, perhaps inevitably, the children claimed that they were
frequently photographed and videotaped � while being sexually abused
and during occult rituals. Fuster claimed to have never owned any
video equipment, and none was found in the belated search of the
Fuster home. Jaime Fuster though recalled seeing video equipment - as
well as guns - being packed into the boxes being loaded into the van
just before Fuster's arrest.
Some investigators have speculated that Fuster was in the business of
producing custom, made-to-order child pornography videos. He
certainly lived quite well for a self-employed mini-blind installer.
He had no problem coming up with the down payment for his Country
Walk home, and had no fewer than six bank accounts. He was in the
habit of making lump sum deposits of as much as $20,000.
Fuster apparently liked to screen home videos for the kids as well,
one of which was said to be a snuff film that the children described
as depicting two men butchering a woman in a bathtub and then eating
her. Some of the kids also, strangely enough, spoke of being
hypnotized by Iliana Fuster, who they said wore a `hypnotizer' on a
chain around her neck.
The trial of Frank Fuster had notable parallels to the McMartin
prosecutions, though it differed in significant ways as well. The
Country Walk parents who actively and vocally worked to see Fuster
brought to justice were subjected to death threats by phone, obscene
messages in the mail, and dead chickens left on their doorsteps �
similar to the harassment suffered by their counterparts in Manhattan
Beach.
Also like McMartin, the primary defense strategy was to bring in a
hired-gun `expert' of questionable qualifications to attempt to
discredit the children's testimony. The children had been brainwashed
by the overzealous therapists, it was claimed, as these villainous
therapists were crucified as being the true guilty parties in what
was clearly a `witch hunt.'
The man originally scheduled to play this starring role for the
defense was Ralph Underwager, at the time a prominent mouthpiece for
a group calling itself VOCAL - Victims of Child Abuse Laws. As the
name implies, this group was largely composed of indicted and/or
convicted pedophiles. Underwager had been present at the birth of the
organization.
The defense suffered a bit of a setback though when Underwager's
credentials as an `expert' in the field of child development were
revealed as being nonexistent at a pretrial deposition. He was
quietly dropped by the defense and replaced with Lee Stewart Coleman,
who also had close ties to VOCAL. Coleman had played a key role in
the unsuccessful prosecution of the defendants in one of the McMartin-
linked preschools.
Coleman did not succeed in his mission in the Country Walk case,
however. Fuster was found guilty on all fourteen counts. One reason
for this is that the children were protected from the abusive
pretrial treatment afforded the McMartin kids. Additionally, the
police and prosecutors - with some notable exceptions - seem to have
actually made an effort to win the case.
Why was this prosecution not subverted as so many others were? That
is difficult to say, though the answer may lie in the make-up of the
parents seeking justice for their children; among them were a police
sergeant, a police lieutenant, two former state prosecutors, a former
chief assistant state attorney, and a gun-toting vigilante named
Bobby Dean.
In the end, Frank Fuster - the man who appeared at his pretrial
hearing in what was described as a "catatonic trance" - was sentenced
to be imprisoned until the year 2150. Not even the Santeria priest
who attended the trial with Fuster's mother and uncle had the power
to save him. And Arvida - which is to say, the Walt Disney Co. - paid
$6 million to seven of his victims.
Even so, justice was not necessarily served. According to the
victims, at least two other adults were involved in the abuse. The
state knew the identity of at least one of them, but he was never
charged with any crimes. Had he been, there's no telling where the
investigation might have led; his wife had once run a babysitting
service.
With the heightened awareness of child abuse engendered by the high-
profile Fuster case, a number of other cases emerged in the Miami
area. In one, police inadvertently stumbled upon a collection of
hundreds of photos of a convicted child pornographer engaged in
sexual acts with young boys, and promptly arrested the man.
Two days after his release on bond, he was found in a Miami hotel
room with a bullet hole in his head. His death was, naturally, ruled
a suicide. This timely suicide preempted an investigation that could
have, it seems reasonable to conclude, led to the elementary school
that was directly across from his home/studio.
Another case that broke in the wake of Country Walk was that of
Harold "Grant" Snowden, whose wife also had run a babysitting
service. Dozens of kids had passed through her care over the course
of a decade. It took two trials, but Snowden was ultimately
convicted. In 1983, he had been named the South Miami Police
Department's "Officer of the Year." Stepping up to handle the appeal
of his conviction was F. Lee Bailey, who in the late 1960s had
represented a U.S. Air Force Captain in South Carolina accused of
child molestation involving multiple victims.
REFERENCES:
1. Hollingsworth, Jan Unspeakable Acts, Congdon & Weed, 1986
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