WEBVTT - Soldier of Misfortune: Frank Sweeney, Pt. 2 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:08.240 Cool Zone Media. I'm so glad you decided to come 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:10.760 back for part two of the story of Frank Sweeney. 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:14.240 If you didn't hear part one, you really need to. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:16.799 This isn't the kind of story you can pick up 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.360 midway through. You missed a cop getting shot with a 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.840 machine gun in a New Jersey suburb, the Rhodesian bush War, 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.560 possible CIA involvement in an Australian political crisis, and we're 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.960 just about to pick up with our escaped spy. The 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.920 second forty years of Frank's life are just as weird 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.400 as the first forty. There's a serial killer, a mafia trial, 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.080 two different secret wives, and a lot of misuse of 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:48.480 the postal service. I'm Molly Conger, and this is weird, 0:00:48.520 --> 0:01:03.600 little guys. 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:04.760 Now. 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.360 When we left off last week, Frank was making friends 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.440 in prison. His new friend in nineteen seventy eight was 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.160 Christopher Boyce, who had just been convicted of espionage for 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.400 selling documents he stole from his job as a CIA 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.199 contractor to the Soviets, and then he escaped from prison. 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:22.560 Whether or not Frank was still in custody on the 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:26.039 day Christopher boyce escape from prison is surprisingly hard to 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.560 pin down. Several newspaper articles about Frank's role in the 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:31.959 ensuing manhunt for the missing spy put his release a 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.440 month before the escape, but others put it a month after. 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.560 Seems like this detail would really matter, but no one 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.400 seemed very concerned about it. In nineteen eighty, newspapers that 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.720 appeared to be quoting the same unnamed source from the 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.120 US Marshalls published conflicting stories, with some saying Frank flew 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.760 to South Africa shortly before Boyce's escape, and others putting 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.560 that trip slightly after the escape, although both of these 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.920 articles say it was exactly twenty three days after. But 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.640 in my frustrated search through forty year old newspapers trying 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.080 to figure out which prison Frank was calling home that year, 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:13.079 I found another surprise, another stabbing. Shortly after Frank was 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.679 transferred to a state prison in Maine in nineteen seventy eight, 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.000 he stabbed another inmate in the chest during an argument 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.440 in the prison library. And again we have this problem 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.200 that keeps coming up in Frank's life. He loves to 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.640 talk to reporters, and he loves to lie. It's the seventies. 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.240 These reporters don't have the Internet. They don't have access 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.160 to electronic court records, so a lot of Frank's lies 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:37.160 get published. When he files a lawsuit against the prison 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.720 warden in Maine about the conditions in solitary confinement, newspapers 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:42.880 publish his claim that he was placed in solitary for 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.000 a stabbing he'd been suspected of, but he says the 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.840 investigation cleared him. A local newspaper in bang Or Main, however, 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.280 had a reporter in the courtroom when he entered a 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.480 guilty plea to that stabbing. But regardless of whether he 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.280 got out in December of seventy nine or February of 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.880 nineteen eighty, we know Frank flew to South Africa soon 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.640 after he got out, and that he stayed there for 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:11.160 a couple of months. The story of Christopher Boyce's nineteen 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:15.360 months on the Lamb is long and strange. Sean Penn 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.359 plays Boyce's friend, the cocaine dealer Dalton Lee in the 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:20.760 nineteen eighty five film adaptation of the book The Falcon 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.320 and the Snowman about the entire affair, I didn't watch it. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.400 There's only so much I can do. But remember this 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.440 is the Cold War. A missing Soviet spy is a 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.040 pretty big pr problem for the United States government. There 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.760 was speculation that the KGB had helped him escape. Boyce 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:39.920 himself called a reporter from a payphone a few months 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.200 after the escape and laughed about the idea that he'd 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.400 had foreign assistance. He says, he just climbed the fence 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.320 and walked out. The task force focused on finding boys 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.200 believed all along that he'd never actually left California, and 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.800 they weren't too far off. He was in Idaho the 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.080 whole time, But a lot of resources ended up getting 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.800 expended pursuing a false lead planted by our friend Frank. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.320 Now I can't prove Frank sent all of these letters himself. 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.720 I can't even find contemporane his reporting where anyone ever 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.080 outright said that they believed Frank sent these letters. And 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.360 he was never charged in connection with his meddling in 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:21.080 this investigation. But just a few weeks after Boyce went missing, 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.880 the United States ambassador in South Africa got a letter. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.040 The postmark indicated that had been mailed from within South Africa, 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.800 and the letter said a known mercenary named shell Hammer 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.680 had assisted the convicted American spy, Christopher Boyce in entering 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.840 South Africa by way of a fake passport. Now, who 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.520 do we know with a history of forging passports, of 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.839 mailing anonymous letters to officials in Southern Africa implicating himself 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:53.560 in crimes and using the pseudonym shell Hammer. And he 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:55.679 absolutely knew the FEDS would tie him to that alias 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.080 because it was the one he had used in those 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.360 classified ads in nineteen seventy six that put him in 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:03.359 prison for mail fraud. And Frank was in South Africa 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:05.599 in February of nineteen eighty when that letter was mailed. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.760 It seems he wanted the authorities to know he was involved. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.680 Why else would he write his own pseudonym into the story. 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.119 So FEDS quickly turned their attention to Frank. They placed 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:21.040 a tracking beacon on his car. They followed him for months, 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.320 and he probably knew he was being followed. They followed 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:26.880 him from his home in New Jersey all the way 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.039 out to California, and from a California motel, he made 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.640 several phone calls to an apartment in Hermosa Beach and 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.279 when they searched that apartment they found it abandoned, but 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.159 they found several letters that Frank had sent to a 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.360 third man, another friend of theirs, from prison, one of 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.600 which read somehow they discovered that I helped him get 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.240 into South Africa. I suspect an informer has been at work, 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.320 but there was no informer. Frank wanted them to find 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.120 those letters, and Boyce was never in South Africa. The 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.560 only reason anyone thought Boyce might be in South Africa 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.159 is because Frank was planting false clues all over the 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.800 world to point them as far away as possible from 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:10.479 a little hunting cabin in the mountains of Idaho, US 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:14.400 Marshalls eventually got frustrated following Frank around. A federal prosecutor 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.280 would actually say an open court that Frank's arrest in 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.040 July of nineteen eighty one was specifically intended to give 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.719 them leverage to make him cooperate in the boy's case. 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.520 It seemed like he knew something and they wanted to 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.279 know what it was. As a felon, Frank wasn't allowed 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.799 to have any guns, and of course Frank had guns. 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.159 Did find one newspaper article that wrapped a sort of 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.960 suspicious sounding hint that they only picked Frank up for 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.840 that gun charge because of an anonymous tip, so maybe 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.320 that was him too. But they picked him up in 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.200 New Jersey at the end of July, and he pretended 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.280 to be very cooperative, telling them that he actually had 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.440 some documents that would leave them straight to boys and 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.160 he would happily show them to them. He voluntarily turned 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.080 over the key to the bank deposit box he was 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.280 keeping them in, and inside they found several letters to 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.279 Frank that had been mailed from South Africa. Sounds like 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.600 more red herrings planted by Frank. He'd flown to South 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.480 Africa several times in the year and a half since 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.120 his release and was probably mailing himself these letters on 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.760 those visits. So now in August of nineteen eighty one, 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.760 it seems like there could be some evidence that Boyce 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.800 really was in South Africa. Frank says he was promised 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.680 placement in the Witness Protection program for his help, and 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.840 maybe they did make that promise if he really could 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.240 help them recover their missing spy, that's a reasonable enough deal. 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.280 And just a few weeks after all of Frank's help, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.760 Boyce was recaptured, but it wasn't due in any part 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.120 to Frank's information during his year and a half on 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.440 the run. Boyce obviously couldn't get a job, so he 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.680 made money the old fashioned way bank robbery. He kept 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.080 it pretty small time, nothing flashy where you get into 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.520 the vault, just little stick ups a few thousand at 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.400 a time from the teller. He's tied to at least 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.360 seventeen bank robberies in Idaho and Washington State during that time, 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.320 eventually teaming up with a couple of brothers from Idaho. 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:13.320 And it was one of those men who turned boys 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.239 in for the reward money, no honor among thieves, I guess. 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.880 Boyce was taken back into custody on August twenty first, 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.720 nineteen eighty one, and he wasn't in South Africa. 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.720 Nationwide flight ended for Christopher Boyce here at the pit 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.760 stop drive in at Port Angelus, Washington. He was eating 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.160 a cheeseburger and onion rings when eight federal agents jumped him. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.520 Boyce was apparently living a triple. 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:47.559 Life, so franklyed obviously he lied pretty egregiously. He falsified documents, 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.239 He led US Marshalls and the CIA on an international 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.160 goose chase, and maybe that's why he never got charged 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.520 for it. That's pretty embarrassing to put on the record, 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.080 but they did still have that uncharged they'd picked him 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.800 up on to use his leverage, so they said a 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.560 sentencing date, but Frank didn't show up. He was trying 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.240 to skip the country again. Remember back in nineteen seventy 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:12.920 six he got all the way to South Africa after 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.439 skipping his sentencing date for mail fraud. But this time 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.120 he was picked up just a few days after he 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.720 missed court when a motel clerk in Montvale, New Jersey 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.319 recognized him. When he was finally dragged in for sentencing, 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:26.520 the government said they hoped Frank was going to be 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.080 able to help them in the boy's case, but nothing 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.000 he said was of any use. Frank said he had 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:33.760 no choice but to flee the country and start a 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:35.800 new life on a cattle ranch in Australia with his 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.280 wife because the government had renegged on their deal to 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.480 put him in witness protection. I have to imagine there 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.199 was some bickering back and forth between an indignant Frank 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.480 and an exasperated federal prosecutor, because in the end, Judge H. 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.680 Curtis Mener said, I have neither the time nor the 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.760 inclination to unravel all of the mysteries. In this case, however, 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:56.360 they'd all ended up in his court room. Whatever the 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.520 convoluted backstory is here, this is a sentencing or illegal 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.240 possession a firearm, and that's really all the judge can 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.480 do that day, so he sentenced Frank to four years. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.840 Judge Meaner said Frank was an explosive type of individual 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.720 and that he was dangerous and mentally sick, and he 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.040 urged Frank to take advantage of the opportunity to get 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.040 psychiatric help while he was in prison this time. And yes, 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.720 I did say wife. When I first started poking around 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.040 trying to build my biographical backstory, to sort of sketch 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.440 out a skeleton of this man's life, I found a 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.120 new Jersey state record for a marriage in August nineteen 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.600 eighty one between a Frank A. Sweeney and aDNA M. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.920 Madison in Bergen County. There are other men named Frank Sweeney, obviously, 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.000 but it was a middle initial match and it's the 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.240 right county, and it was one of the rare months 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.800 that Frank wasn't in prison. But it didn't seem right, 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.080 so I set it aside. But this offhand mention at 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.439 his sentencing hearing about a wife sent me back to it. 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.600 It is him. After the FEDS picked him up at 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.800 the end of July nineteen eighty one on that gun charge, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:08.640 he was released from custody. He was cooperating. He took 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:10.240 them to the bank to look at his fake evidence. 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:15.960 All that, and sometime that month he got married. I 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.880 have no idea how they met, or where she came from, 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:20.520 or what she thought she was going to get out 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:22.559 of any of this, or if she knew Frank was 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.800 planning on entering witness protection that month, or what on 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.520 earth she saw in this man. But I do know 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.040 how the marriage ended. Frank went back to prison that 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.400 very same year, so they didn't have much time together. 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.160 I don't know where Diana was while Frank was away, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.200 But by nineteen eighty five, according to a decision by 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.120 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Dana was living in 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.880 Texas with her new boyfriend, Danny Lee Strong. They couldn't 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.839 have known each other very long before moving in together 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.560 because Strong had only just gotten out of prison again 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:55.640 for another and a string of pretty run of the 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.720 mill robbery and fraud charges, and they didn't stay together 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.480 long before they were arrested for murdering a man Strong 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:06.199 said made a pass at Deanna. She was ultimately only 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.560 convicted of stealing the victim's car, which they fled the 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.959 scene in, but Strong got ninety nine years for the 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:15.560 brutal beating and asphyxiation of Robert Eugene Thomas. Frank doesn't 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.240 really factor into this story. He's in prison in another 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.840 state this whole time, but his name appears in a 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:25.560 footnote of an appeals court decision upholding Strong's conviction. Strong 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:27.960 had sent Frank a letter after finding out that Deanna 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.120 was planning to testify against him for the murder. I 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.600 can't imagine what you write in a letter to your 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.920 girlfriend's husband about a situation like this. But all that 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.080 to say, Frank really did have a wife that he 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.120 planned to start a new life with in Australia, but 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.000 she ended up watching her boyfriend choke a man to 0:12:45.040 --> 0:13:02.280 death in an apartment in Fort Worth instead. On January ninth, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.760 nineteen eighty two, the UVA men's basketball team lost to 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.280 the tar Heels in a close game, sixty to sixty 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.960 five at UNC's Carmichael Arena. I'm not a basketball fan, 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.120 and I wasn't born then, but I guess it was 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.120 an exciting game. Unc had knocked Uva out of the 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.480 Final four the year before. But Joseph Paul Franklin, an 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.000 avowed neo Nazi who'd recently been handed his first couple 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.720 of life sentences for two of his many murders, didn't 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.960 care much for basketball. He was in the wreck room 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.840 at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.760 and he was trying to watch American bandstand. According to 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.480 frank whose time at the Springfield prison overlapped with Franklins 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.880 for a few weeks in nineteen eighty one until Franklin's 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.880 transfer at the end of January nineteen eighty two, the 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.640 serial killer became enraged when a black prison guard changed 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.719 the channel. Later that year, Joseph Paul Franklin was back 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.520 in court. He'd spent years traveling the country, robbing banks 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.840 and murdering young black men in in racial couples, so 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:02.880 it would take years to sort out what to do 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.720 with him. This time, he was on trial for the 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:10.440 unsuccessful assassination attempt on civil rights activists Vernon Jordan on 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.120 May twenty ninth, nineteen eighty The Fort Wayne, Indiana chapter 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.400 of the National Urban League was hosting a banquet in 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.079 honor of a visit from National Urban League President Vernin Jordan, 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.240 when a volunteer dropped him off at his hotel. Later 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.280 that evening, a single bullet from a thirty six rifle 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:29.000 tore through his back. He survived, but it's hard to 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.240 build a case against a drifter sniper. Nobody saw him. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:38.040 The investigators had some handwriting analysis on a motel registration card, 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.280 testimony from a grocery store clerk who identified Franklin as 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.840 a man he'd had a strange conversation with, and a 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.000 general idea that the crime fit Franklin's pattern, but it 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.440 was a bit thin. And then came frank Oh, frank 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.840 loves to talk, he loves to be helpful. He's still 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.480 in prison on that gun charge, but he told federal 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.560 authorities that in the brief couple of weeks he'd been 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.960 on the same s cell block as Franklin. They chatted 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.360 a few times, and Franklin had confessed to him on 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:10.000 several occasions about shooting Vernon Jordan. On the stand, frank 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.520 testified about that evening in January when the guard changed 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.560 the channel to the basketball game and it's a pretty 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.120 good detail. Frank was very specific that it was a 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.920 Uva UNC game that we couldn't recall the date. They 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.200 were only on that cell block together for a few weeks, 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.400 and there was in fact a Uva UNC basketball game 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:30.119 during that time period that would have been on television. 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.760 He testified that Franklin was furious about the incident and 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.120 spent days fuming about it. The two inmates were walking 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.320 together in the exercise area a few days later when 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:42.360 Franklin spotted that same guard again and turned to frank 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.880 and said, I'd like to blow him away, like I 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:49.720 shot that and were big wig in Indiana. Frank says. 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.320 He also lamented that Jordan just wouldn't die after being shot, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.000 and that he was sorry I didn't shoot that white 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.080 slut first, referring to the white woman who'd given Jordan 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.800 a ride that night. Frank was one of three jail 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.640 house informants the government put on during that trial, all 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:07.760 men who'd been in jail with Franklin, and all of 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.160 whom said Franklin had admitted to various aspects of the 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:15.240 crime and casual conversation. Josephaul Franklin was actually acquitted at 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:19.080 that federal trial, jurors said they believed Franklin shot Jordan, 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:21.520 but they were hung up on the wording of the indictment, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.080 which specifically charged him with the shooting as a violation 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.760 of Jordan's civil rights. Years later, on death row for 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.920 a variety of other murders, Franklin did confess to shooting 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.640 Vernon Jordan when the trial was over, though jurors who 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.200 spoke to the press said they'd only believed one of 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:43.120 the three jail house informants who testified frank On cross examination, 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.520 frank Sweeney seemed surprised to learn that the other two 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.160 men had been paid thousands of dollars for their cooperation. 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.720 He wasn't getting paid, but he wasn't upset. He didn't 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.720 need the money. He'd inherited a quarter of million dollars, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.400 which would be about a million dollars today. When his 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:04.000 parents died. All he wanted was witness protection, then a 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:08.040 positive letter to the New Jersey Parole Board. Just like 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.960 in the boy's case, he very conveniently had some information 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.679 the government wanted, and all he wanted in return was 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:20.520 witness protection. And this time it got it. But he 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.800 didn't get to keep it. In nineteen eighty four, Frank 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.200 filed a lawsuit against the warden of the Alabama prison 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.439 where he was still serving his sentence on that gun charge. 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.680 He said he was not receiving the protection afforded to 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.359 him as a protected witness. The warden's response to the 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.879 suit was that Frank would not stop telling people that 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.240 he was a protected witness, which was causing a lot 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:46.000 of problems. You're not supposed to do that in court. 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.880 The warden's executive assistant said that the prison was considering 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.119 contacting in the Office of Enforcement Operations, the division of 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.840 the DOJ that administers the Witness Security program, to recommend 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.520 his removal from the program because they believed he was 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.879 intentionally causing problem by talking about this constantly. And it 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.640 seems he was ultimately removed from the Witness Security program 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.360 around this time, and maybe that had something to do 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.639 with his decision to testify on behalf of Anthony Spalotro, 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.240 the hot headed Chicago mobster who handled the family's business 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.720 in Las Vegas. It couldn't have been an attempt to 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.680 get back in the program. He was testifying for the defense, 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.240 but maybe he was just spiite. He wanted to get 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:32.280 somebody else kicked out of the program. In nineteen eighty three, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.520 when he was still in prison and still considered a 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.560 protected witness, he briefly shared a cell with another guy 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:42.639 in the program. Frank Kulatta was a mobster. He was 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.000 a member of Tony Spilotro's Hole in the Wall gang. 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.880 If you've seen the nineteen ninety five Scorsese movie Casino, 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.640 it's that quite literally. Frank Marino, the character played by 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.440 the guy who played Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos, is 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.320 supposed to be Frank Kulatta. Joe Peshi's character, Nikison Toro 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.800 is based on Tony Spilotrow. Just watch the movie. It's 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.840 all very complicated, and our friend Frank Sweeney had nothing 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.119 to do with it. But in nineteen eighty three, the 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.720 real life Frank Kulata was sharing a cell with Frank 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.760 Sweeney because they had both turned state's witness against very 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.320 dangerous men. Frank Sweeney had just testified against a serial 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.399 killer and Frank Kulatta had turned on Spilotro after the 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.080 FBI played him a recording of his friend talking about 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:29.560 having him killed. When Anthony Spilotro went on trial, in 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.359 nineteen eighty six, Frank Kulatta was out of prison and 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.800 in the program, and he was the government's star witness 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:40.000 against Spilotroe. Frank Sweeney was finally out of prison again 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:41.600 in home in New Jersey when he read in the 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.840 paper that Kulata was going to be testifying. According to Frank, 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.280 he felt compelled to contact Spilotro's defense attorney because when 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:54.240 they were cell mates, Culata would often brag about committing perjury, 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.280 So the defense flew Frank out to Las Vegas and 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.879 put him on the stand. He claimed that after one 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.480 of Coulada's appearances in court back in nineteen eighty three, 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.360 he came back to their shared cell and bragged, Frankie, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.560 I'd just put another one away. You've heard of the 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:15.080 traveling circus. I'm the original traveling perjurer. On cross examination, 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:17.480 Frank Sweeney admitted that when he'd been in the witness 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.560 protection program, he had on several occasions threatened and even 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.960 faked suicide attempts to get what he wanted out of 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:29.000 federal prosecutors. I wish I had more information on that. 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.600 That is incredibly strange behavior, and it does actually happen again. 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.680 Later in the end, though his testimony in that mob 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.119 trial is just a strange little footnote his third brush 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.760 with the witness protection program, his testimony didn't matter much. 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.400 I don't think anyone believed it, and the case ended 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.800 in a mistrial over allegations of jury tampering, and Anthony 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.760 Spilotro went missing before they could retry the case. The 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:56.840 mobster and his brother were later found buried in a 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:01.159 cornfield in Indiana. Frank Kula stayed in the witness Protection 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.919 program for years, and Scorsese hired him as an onset 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.439 adviser when he shot Casino. Klada died of COVID in 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:12.240 twenty twenty, and in nineteen eighty nine, Frank went back 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:17.080 to prison for mail fraud. Again. The court record is 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.960 too old to get any documents without haggling with an archivist, 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.679 but the docket sheet does say that, in addition to 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.879 another fifty seven months in prison, the judge also banned 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:30.240 Frank from ever offering anything for sale by mail. So 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:32.800 at first I assumed he was pulling the same scam 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.560 he ran in nineteen seventy six, where he placed ads 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.000 for guns he didn't actually have and then ghosted would 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.119 be buyers after they sent him the money. But it's 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.560 much weirder than that. I wish it was guns. It 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.360 wasn't guns. This time. He was running what one journalist 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:53.480 called a cat scam. He'd cut the tails off regular 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:58.159 housecats and then run ads offering them as exotic purebred 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:02.359 cats for three hundred dollars. If he really was as 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:05.679 independently wealthy of his inheritance as he claimed, did he 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:09.720 really need three hundred dollars for a mutilated cat? Maybe 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:13.720 he's just addicted to mail fraud. As for the cats, 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:16.879 one of the earliest mentions I could find of Frank 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.119 in the newspaper archives was a nineteen fifty eight article 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:24.520 about the embalmed cat he got for his fifteenth birthday. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:27.919 He was looking forward to dissecting it and adding it 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:31.000 to his collection of oddities that already included a cat skeleton. 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.800 So I hope all his fraudulent cats found happy homes, 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.760 even if their buyers were unhappy about losing three hundred dollars. 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:42.320 But it's in an appeals court decision related to a 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.000 parole violation in this second mail fraud case, where we 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.119