The Opperman Report'

The horrific 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn shocked the citizens of Philadelphia. Plucked from her own front yard, Barbara Jean was found dead less than two and a half hours later in a cardboard TV box dragged to a nearby street curb. After months of investigation with no strong leads, the case went cold. Four years later it was reopened, and Walter Ogrod, a young man with autism spectrum disorder who had lived across the street from the family at the time of the murder, was brought in as a suspect. Ogrod bears no resemblance to the composite police sketch based on eyewitness accounts of the man carrying the box, and there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime. His conviction was based solely on a confession he signed after thirty-six hours without sleep. "They said I could go home if I signed it," Ogrod told his brother from the jailhouse. The case was so weak that the jury voted unanimously to acquit him, but at the last second—in a dramatic courtroom declaration—one juror changed his mind. As he waited for a retrial, Ogrod's fate was sealed when a notorious jailhouse snitch was planted in his cell block and supplied the prosecution with a second supposed confession. As a result, Walter Ogrod sits on death row for the murder today. Informed by police records, court transcripts, interviews, letters, journals, and more, award-winning journalist Thomas Lowenstein leads readers through the facts of the infamous Horn murder case in compelling, compassionate, and riveting fashion. He reveals explosive new evidence that points to a condemned man's innocence and exposes a larger underlying pattern of prosecutorial misconduct in Philadelphia. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Lynn Crook - False Memories - The Deception That Silenced Millions Ed Opperman’s guest today is Lynn Crook. False memory syndrome is a go-to diagnosis for memories which, when recovered, seem to have no corroborating evidence. There’s a whole world of research into False Memory Syndrome, the causes and effects of ‘remembering’ things which never happened. But the syndrome has also become a useful tool in discrediting those whose recollections are clear enough, yet lack substantive evidence. From Her Amazon; When states allowed adults who were molested as children to sue for damages, accused parents went on the offense. The parents claimed the accusations were false memories implanted by therapists. The parents established a non-profit and invested millions in a PR campaign to promote themselves as falsely accused, and to dismiss crimes committed against children as false memories. As evidence, they offered the story of an older brother who convinced his younger brother he was lost at a mall. The false memory story went viral. The popular press and psychology textbooks failed to challenge false memory claims. Individuals who challenged false memories were silenced. The author explains how her successful lawsuit against her parents helped her uncover the rest of the false memory story. Lynn Crook, M.Ed., has a Master's Degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Washington (1970). Lynn was herself a therapist when she recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Lynn Crook, MEd, successfully sued her parents for damages in 1994, based on a corroborated claim of childhood sexual abuse. Book: False Memories - The Deception That Silenced Millions https://amzn.to/3RsvSyJ This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

The Historic Groom Mine & Residence has been owned an operated by us, the Sheahan family, since 1889. Rich in several precious metals including lead, silver and gold, we diligently mined the land, paving our way in Nevada mining history. In time, the Groom Mine became our foundation, livelihood and home. In the 1940s, the U.S. Government set their sights on southern Nevada as prime real estate for an aircraft testing facility. Slowly, the U.S. Government drove every mine in the vicinity out of the area- except for our family, who held and continues to hold six patented mining claims dating back to 1864 and 15 unpatented claims. After Congress passed the General Mining Act of 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant not only signed the White Lake and Conception Patents, but in writing, granted us the “exclusive right to enjoyment of all the lands within the boundaries, forever.” Due to the stature of such claims, our family was able to remain living on and continue mining our land. On June 23, 1954 at approximately 12 p.m., the heart and soul of our property, the mill, was bombed causing more than $1 million in damages. The destruction was devastating, as we watched decades of hard work, dedication and history burst into flames. The wreckage forced us to uproot our home, relocate and re-start our careers elsewhere. Less than a year later, the USAF acquired the land just north of the Groom property and established an Air Force Base, known today as Area 51. Since, we have been granted limited access to our property. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Michael Horn - Billy Meier September 15 Michael Horn joins Ed Opperman to talk about one of the most legendary UFO contactees, the mysterious Billy Meier. Meier claims his extraterrestrial encounters began in 1942, at the age of five, when he met an elderly Plejaren man named "Sfath. After Sfath's death in 1953, Meier said, he began communicating with an extraterrestrial woman (though not a Plejaren) called "Asket". All contacts ceased in 1964, he said, then resumed on January 28, 1975, when he met "Semjase",the granddaughter of Sfath, and shortly thereafter another Plejaren man called "Ptaah". Other extraterrestrials have since allegedly joined the dialog as well. Meier founded a non-profit, tax-paying organization based on his alleged contacts with Semjase, called the "Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien" (Free Community of Interests for the Border and Spiritual Sciences and Ufological Studies) in the late 1970s and established his "Semjase Silver Star Center". The organization's headquarters is in Switzerland. So is it all real or not? Ed Opperman attempts to find out. Book : The Billy Meier Story: UFOs and the Prophecies from Outer Space This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Matthew Phelan - James O'Keefe, Project Veritas September 15 Matthew Phalen joins Ed Opperman to discuss the mysterious yet widely referenced machinations of Project Veritas, and one of its' founders, James O'Keefe. Project Veritas is an American far-right activist group founded by James O'Keefe in 2010. The group produces deceptively edited videos of its undercover operations, which use secret recordings in an effort to discredit mainstream media organizations and progressive groups. Project Veritas also uses entrapment to generate bad publicity for its targets, and has propagated disinformation and conspiracy theories in its videos and operations. Targets of Project Veritas include Planned Parenthood, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), NPR, CNN, and The Washington Post. In 2009, Project Veritas associates published misleading videos that depicted ACORN employees providing advice on concealing illegal activity, causing ACORN to shut down after losing funding. ACORN was cleared of wrongdoing by the Attorney General of California in 2010, and the associates paid a total of $150,000 in settlements to an ACORN employee who sued for defamation. NPR CEO Vivian Schiller resigned in 2013 after Project Veritas released a deceptively edited video portraying another NPR executive making controversial comments about the Tea Party movement and NPR's federal funding. Project Veritas unsuccessfully attempted to mislead The Washington Post into publishing false information about the Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations in 2017 the Post won a Pulitzer Prize after uncovering the operation. In 2022, a jury awarded $120,000 against Project Veritas for fraudulent misrepresentation concerning nonprofit Democracy Partners . This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

The Penn State child sex abuse scandal concerned allegations and subsequent convictions of child sexual abuse committed by Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team, over a period of at least fifteen years. The scandal began to emerge publicly in March 2011 and broke in early November 2011 when Sandusky was indicted on 52 counts of child molestation, stemming from incidents that occurred between 1994 and 2009.[1] Sandusky was ultimately convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse on June 22, 2012,[2] and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 60 years in prison.[3] Additionally, three Penn State officials – school president Graham Spanier, vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley – were charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, failure to report suspected child abuse, and related charges.[4] The Penn State Board of Trustees commissioned an independent investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose report stated that Penn State's longtime head football coach Joe Paterno, along with Spanier, Curley and Schultz, had known about allegations of child abuse by Sandusky as early as 1998, had shown "total and consistent disregard...for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims", and "empowered" Sandusky to continue his acts of abuse by failing to disclose them.[5]: 14 [6][7] Shortly after the scandal broke, Spanier resigned. The Board of Trustees terminated the contracts of Paterno and Curley. As a result of the scandal, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) imposed sanctions on the Penn State football program: a $60 million fine, a four-year postseason ban, scholarship reductions, and a vacation of all victories from 1998 to 2011.[8] These sanctions were considered to be among the most severe ever imposed on an NCAA member school. NCAA President Mark Emmert stated that the sanctions were levied "not to be just punitive, but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people."[9][10] The Big Ten Conference subsequently imposed an additional $13 million fine.[11] The Paterno family retained former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh to conduct a review of the Freeh report, which concluded that the report constituted a "rush to injustice" that could not be relied upon[12][13] and that Freeh's evidence fell "far short" of showing that Joe Paterno attempted to conceal the scandal, but rather that "the contrary is true".[13] In January 2013, state senator Jake Corman and state treasurer Rob McCord sued the NCAA, seeking to overturn the Penn State sanctions on the basis that Freeh had been actively collaborating with the organization and that due process had not been followed. In November 2014, Corman released emails showing "regular and substantive" contact between Freeh's investigators and the NCAA, suggesting that Freeh's conclusions were orchestrated.[14] As part of a settlement, the NCAA restored the 111 wins to Paterno's record on January 16, 2015.[15][10] 3 years ago #&, #blehar:, #coverup, #ed, #mile, #opperman, #penn, #ray, #report, #sandusky, #second, #spreaker, #state This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Ray Blehar Second Mile Sandusky Scandal "Jerry" Sandusky (born January 26, 1944) is a convicted serial child molester and retired American football coach. Sandusky served as an assistant coach for his entire career, mostly at Pennsylvania State University under Joe Paterno (from 1969 to 1999). He received Assistant Coach of the Year awards in 1986 and 1999.[Sandusky authored several books related to his football coaching experiences. In 1977, Sandusky founded The Second Mile, a non-profit charity serving Pennsylvania underprivileged and at-risk youth. After Sandusky retired as assistant coach at Penn State, he continued working with The Second Mile at Penn State, maintaining an office at Penn State until 2011. In 2011, following a two-year grand jury investigation, Sandusky was arrested and charged with 52 counts of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period from 1994 to 2009. He met his molestation victims through The Second Mile; they were participating in the organization. Several of them testified against Sandusky in his sexual abuse trial. Four of the charges were subsequently dropped. On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of the 48 remaining charges. Sandusky was sentenced on October 9, 2012 to 30 to 60 years in prison—at his age, effectively a life sentence.On October 18, 2012, Sandusky's lawyers appealed his conviction in Centre County Court in Pennsylvania. They claim that they did not have enough time to prepare for their client's case. On October 31, 2012, Sandusky was moved to Pennsylvania's SCI Greene "supermax" prison to serve his sentence. On January 30, 2013, Pennsylvania Judge John Cleland denied Sandusky's request for a new trial. 7 years ago #blehar, #ed, #jerry, #mile, #opperman, #ray, #ray blehar, #report, #sandusky, #scandal, #second This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Greg Bucceroni grew up as a tough kid in Philadelphia. The same kid never would have seen his future - to be abused by Penn State's Jerry Sandusky, and involved with a child abuse ring covering three states. A compelling story with details you'll only here on the Opperman Report. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Goodfellas meets Savages meets Catch Me If You Can in this true tale of high-stakes smuggling from pot’s outlaw years. Richard Stratton was the unlikeliest of kingpins. A clean-cut Wellesley boy who entered outlaw culture on a trip to Mexico, he saw his search for a joint morph into a thrill-filled dope run smuggling two kilos across the border in his car door. He became a member of the Hippie Mafia, traveling the world to keep America high, living the underground life while embracing the hippie credo, rejecting hard drugs in favor of marijuana and hashish. With cameos by Whitey Bulger and Norman Mailer, Smuggler’s Blues tells Stratton’s adventure while centering on his last years as he travels from New York to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to source and smuggle high-grade hash in the midst of civil war, from the Caribbean to the backwoods of Maine, and from the Chelsea Hotel to the Plaza as his fortunes rise and fall. All the while he is being pursued by his nemesis, a philosophical DEA agent who respects him for his good business practices. A true-crime story that reads like fiction, Smuggler’s Blues is a psychedelic road trip through international drug smuggling, the hippie underground, and the war on weed. As Big Marijuana emerges, it brings to vivid life an important chapter in pot’s cultural history. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Goodfellas meets Savages meets Catch Me If You Can in this true tale of high-stakes smuggling from pot’s outlaw years. Richard Stratton was the unlikeliest of kingpins. A clean-cut Wellesley boy who entered outlaw culture on a trip to Mexico, he saw his search for a joint morph into a thrill-filled dope run smuggling two kilos across the border in his car door. He became a member of the Hippie Mafia, traveling the world to keep America high, living the underground life while embracing the hippie credo, rejecting hard drugs in favor of marijuana and hashish. With cameos by Whitey Bulger and Norman Mailer, Smuggler’s Blues tells Stratton’s adventure while centering on his last years as he travels from New York to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to source and smuggle high-grade hash in the midst of civil war, from the Caribbean to the backwoods of Maine, and from the Chelsea Hotel to the Plaza as his fortunes rise and fall. All the while he is being pursued by his nemesis, a philosophical DEA agent who respects him for his good business practices. A true-crime story that reads like fiction, Smuggler’s Blues is a psychedelic road trip through international drug smuggling, the hippie underground, and the war on weed. As Big Marijuana emerges, it brings to vivid life an important chapter in pot’s cultural history. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Hager became the first editor to publish and promote the work of hemp activist Jack Herer. Under Hager's leadership, High Times created the Cannabis Cup, a cannabis awards ceremony held every Thanksgiving in Amsterdam; and The High Times Freedom Fighters, the first hemp legalization group. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

A new witness has emerged in a cold-case murder with a connection to “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz — and he has told police that a prominent entertainer now living in New York City may be responsible for the crime, The Post has learned. Brian McCracken, a 64-year-old technical writer, gave authorities a bizarre account of what happened the night of the unsolved slaying inside Stanford Memorial Church in Stanford, Calif., more than 40 years ago, including fresh details about a wig-wearing flutist, a candlelit Satanic ritual and a naked female victim. And McCracken says that the flutist could be the man at the center of the vicious killing. about 1 year ago #-, #arlis, #brian, #in, #mccracken, #murder, #new, #perry, #witness This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

A Houston Racketeering Ring of “Mini-Madoffs” Has Been Extorting Victims Out of Their Life Savings For Decades. The Syndicate Is Also Linked to a Tragic 2016 Murder-Suicide Involving Two Children. April 19, 2021 MURDER AND FRAUD IN TEXASLakshimanarayan “Lucky” Srinivasan, Jeremy Raju Srinivasan, Gwendolyn “Gwen” Stone Stallworth-Sumrall, Alvar Chari, Anirban Haldar and their many co-conspirators, have conned individuals, families, businesses and other organizations out of multiple millions of dollars in cash and assets over the past several decades, leaving many of their victims destitute and their lives ripped apart. The racketeering ring has used a combination of check-kiting, reverse Ponzi and other fraudulent investment schemes to extort money from their hard-working victims, court records show. In 2016, under mounting financial pressure caused by his and his co-conspirators’ volitional fraudulent entanglements, Jeremy murdered his wife and two young children before fatally turning the gun on himself. Lucky, Gwen and the others continue to actively seek new investors to swindle. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

The first book to document the efforts of the FBI against the most famous American folk singers of the mid-twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Burl Ives. Some of the most prominent folk singers of the twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Burl Ives, etc., were also political activists with various associations with the American Communist Party. As a consequence, the FBI, along with other governmental and right-wing organizations, were monitoring them, keeping meticulous files running many thousands of pages, and making (and carrying out) plans to purge them from the cultural realm. In The Folk Singers and the Bureau, Aaron J Leonard draws on an unprecedented array of declassified documents and never before released files to shed light on the interplay between left-wing folk artists and their relationship with the American Communist Party, and how it put them in the US government's repressive cross hairs. At a time of increasing state surveillance and repression, The Folk Singers and the Bureau shows how the FBI and other governmental agencies have attempted to shape and repress American culture. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Hugh Turley - Vince Foster Updates Park Police discovered Foster dead from an apparently self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia on July 20, 1993. Foster was holding a gun in his hand. An autopsy and subsequent investigation later confirmed that Foster had died by shooting himself once in the mouth with the .38 calibre Colt revolver found at the scene. Or did he? Foster had been known to be unhappy with his job at the White House. Exactly why remains a subject of controversy. Accusations and criticisms were rife in his work. But the case didn't sit right. Foster wasn't logged out of the Whitehouse. The gun was found some distance from the body - a rare occurrence in gun shot suicides. And Forster's injuries were indicative of the pistol being held in the right hand, but Foster was left handed. Despite the reluctance of authorities to reopen the case, many researchers have postulated a number of different scenarios which ended in Foster's demise. Hugh Turley is one of those who has looked into the case. he shares his knowledge of the case with Ed Opperman. Recorded May 2023 This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Hugh Turley - Thomas Merton Betrayed - The case against Abbot James Fox and author John Howard Griffin Hugh Turley returns to discuss more revelations concerning the assassination of Thomas Merton in 1968. The secret assassination of Thomas Merton and its subsequent cover-up required planning. For over fifty years, the U.S. government and the leadership of Merton’s home abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani were able to perpetuate a virtually transparent lie concerning his death. They were abetted, unfortunately, by the Catholic Church, the Catholic press, and Catholic academia, along with the press and scholarly world generally. Thomas Merton’s Betrayers: The Case against Abbot James Fox and Author John Howard Griffin focuses upon that long-successful lie about the cause of Merton’s death in Thailand in 1968, that is, that he was electrocuted by a faulty fan. How did it become so widely accepted? It was not the official conclusion reached by the investigating authorities, the Thai police, who concluded that Merton had died of “heart failure,” although they did make mention of a fan that they said had a faulty wire installed and could have killed him had he not been dead already when he encountered it. He tells Ed Opperman about the book and the events it catalogues and why, in many ways, Merton's killing was even more sinister than RFK and MLK, which happened in the same year. Book : Thomas Merton This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Hugh Turley - Thomas Merton, his mission and his murder Hugh Turley joined Ed Opperman to discuss Thomas Merton, one of the greatest scribes and men of peace of the 20th Century, largely unsung, whose writings from a Monastry during the sixties were more than incidental to the events of those times. Turley speaks of Merton, the man, his work and ultimately his murder in 1968. Merton was also responsible as inspiration at least for the seminal work on the book 'JFK and The Unspeakable. Why he died and why it matters'. Merton was instrumental in the cooling of high temperatures during the Cuban missile crisis, averting both the end of the world and a massive coup for the Military Industrial Complex. Not only did this mark out JFK for execution, but it also put a timer on his own life. In 1968, someone spoke regarding Thomas Merton as Henry II spoke regarding Thomas à Becket on Christmas Day, AD 1170, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" And, as in 1170 so in 1968, someone did rid the speaker "of this meddlesome priest." The difference in the two cases is that in 1170, Pope Alexander immediately started an investigation, determined who the murderers were—four knights, a bishop and Henry II— and excommunicated them. In 1968, however, the powers that be in the Church, the state and media fabricated a story on how Merton died, adopted it, and extensively and exclusively publicized it. In 1968, Thomas Merton was the last in the triad of murder of men of global eminence who were commanding and compelling voices on behalf of the wretched of the earth in the U.S. and beyond. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were the other two. And as religious and secular realpolitik would have it, the murderers of all three were protected by government, corporate, and religious systematic deceit operations nearly as impenetrable to this day as they were in 1968. -Emmanuel Charles McCarthy Website : Thomas Merton FBI Coverup Website : Hugh Turley Magician Youtube : Thomas Merton From October 2018. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement