Why has the press ignored the case of Duke U. official arrested for child molestation?

August 10, 2:14 PMNorfolk Crime ExaminerDave Gibson

Previous Next

4 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Norfolk Crime Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Ex-Duke official Frank Lombard

In late June, FBI agents along with Durham police officers arrested associate director of Duke's Center for Health Policy Frank M. Lombard, 42, on child molestation charges. Lombard is accused of inviting another man to travel to North Carolina in order to molest his adopted 5-year-old son. The other man, turned out to be a police officer posing as an online predator.

Allegedly, on at least three occasions Lombard could be seen via webcam performing oral sex , and other sex acts on his adopted son. Apparently, Lombard had allowed other individuals to molest the child as well.

Lombard is alleged to have told the undercover investigator, that he had performed several sex acts on the 5-year-old and that he could have his way with the child if he flew to the Raleigh/Durham area. Lombard even provided the detective with a recommendation for a hotel.

In 2007, an unknown internet user filed a complaint against Lombard for similar activities. In a sworn affidavit, that user claimed Lombard said he "was into incest" and had adopted two black children.

At the time of his arrest, the chat transcripts were released which show Lombard being asked how he has access to the little boy, to which Lombard simply replies: "Adopted." He went on to describe the adoption process as "not so hard ... especially for a black boy."

Lombard also told the investigator that molesting the child was "easier when he was too young to know what was happening and when he couldn't talk ...He had a little too much Benadryl. Was knocked out."

Lombard is in jail awaiting trial. Last week, the university quietly fired him.

Despite the incredibly disturbing nature of this crime, the press has failed to cover the story.

However, that was certainly not the case a few years ago, when another scandal rocked Duke University.

In 2006, when stripper Crystal Gail Mangum falsely accused several Duke lacrosse team members of raping her, the mainstream press devoted nearly non-stop coverage to the story. Not only did they cover it, but they did their best to convict the young men in the court of public opinion.

CNN’s Nancy Grace, who talked about the story on a nightly basis, once said: "I'm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape!" and defended the accuser by saying: "Why would you go to a cop in an alleged gang rape case, say, and lie and give misleading information?"

Newspapers USA Today and the New York Times gave extensive and rather biased coverage to the story of the supposed gang rape, and held up the now-disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong as a hero. However, Since Frank Lombard’s arrest, USAToday has devoted all of 108 words to his alleged crime, while the New York Times has not covered it at all.

So, why the lack of coverage?

The following may be a few of the reasons:

-Lombard researches the health disparities between black and white Americans, and often talks about the exploitation of poor blacks, while he himself was exploiting a black child for his own perverse sexual gratification.

-Lombard is homosexual, and the case may turn more people against the policy of allowing homosexual couples to adopt children..

-The press has a history of ignoring high-profile liberals, accused of crimes against children (ACLU official Charles Rust-Tierney, NPR editor David Malakoff).

Of course, it was not only the press who have shown incredible hypocrisy in their treatment of the two cases.

After the accusations against the lacrosse team were made, a total of 88 Duke University faculty members signed a letter which appeared in the local newspaper, accusing the school’s white students of being largely racist and sexist, and generally damning the accused lacrosse players.

80 percent of the faculty in Duke’s African-American Studies department signed the letter, as well as 72 percent from the Women’s Studies department.

On April 20, 2006, Duke University president Richard Brodhead told the Durham Chamber of Commerce : "If our students did what is alleged, it is appalling to the worst degree. If they didn’t do it, whatever they did is bad enough."

There has been no such condemnation from the Duke faculty though for Frank Lombard.

?

?

?

?

?