vault backup: 2026-10-09 18:00:33

10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Francis Shelden.md

@@ -23,11 +23,16 @@ relations:
     with: "[[Father Bud's Boys Farm]]"
     role: "listed sponsor"
     fn: 1
+  - type: funded
+    with: "[[Trust Company of the Virgin Islands]]"
+    role: "settlor of revocable trust, about two million dollars in securities"
+    start: 1976-09
+    fn: 3
 created: 2026-04-28
-updated: 2026-09-22
+updated: 2026-10-09
 ---
 
-Francis Duffield Shelden, the bachelor heir of a prominent Detroit-area family, was a part-time university professor, a former director of the Cranbrook Institute of Science, and a board member of [[Boys Republic]], a residential center for troubled boys in Farmington Hills; a 1975 newspaper interview described him as devoting much of his time to Big Brothers, which later denied he had been connected with it. He was the sole owner of [[North Fox Island]], 835 acres in Leelanau County off Grand Traverse Bay, assessed at 312,000 dollars.[^1] His great-grandfather was [[Russell A. Alger]], governor of [[Michigan]] and Secretary of War.[^2]
+Francis Duffield Shelden, the bachelor heir of a prominent Detroit-area family, was a part-time university professor, a former director of the Cranbrook Institute of Science, and a board member of [[Boys Republic]], a residential center for troubled boys in Farmington Hills; a 1975 newspaper interview described him as devoting much of his time to Big Brothers, which later denied he had been connected with it. He was the sole owner of [[North Fox Island]], 835 acres in Leelanau County off Grand Traverse Bay, assessed at 312,000 dollars.[^1] The writer S. Dovey wrote that his great-grandfather was [[Russell A. Alger]], governor of [[Michigan]] and Secretary of War.[^2] In a deposition taken in Amsterdam in 1982 in litigation over his trust, Shelden testified that he was born in Detroit on September 5, 1928, the son of Alger Shelden; that he received a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University, served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War, received a master of science degree in geology from Wayne State University and completed the course work for a doctorate at the University of Michigan without finishing the thesis; and that he inherited considerable wealth from his father and from his grandfathers, Henry D. Shelden and Russell A. Alger.[^3]
 
 ### Brother Paul's Children's Mission
 
@@ -37,7 +42,15 @@ After Richards's arrest in July 1976, in possession of pornographic films, he to
 
 ### The Wider Network
 
-Richards's films led Tennessee authorities to raid Boys Farm Inc. near Alto, the [[Father Bud's Boys Farm]] of the Episcopal priest Claudius I. "Bud" [[Claudius Vermilye|Vermilye]] Jr., who was indicted on sixteen counts; its list of more than 270 "active sponsors" included Shelden. Vermilye's eldest son had disappeared on July 5, 1974. In [[New Orleans]], the leader of Boy Scout [[Troop 137]], Richard Halverson, and twelve other men, including the Massachusetts industrialist [[Richard C. Jacobs]] of Jet Spray Corporation and the realtor Hugh Scott Mellor, were charged with conspiracy; Halverson, a volunteer probation officer, had drawn up applications for state and federal money for homes for boys, and the Louisiana and Tennessee welfare departments had paid for children placed with the groups. "It seems to be like spider webs strung out all over the nation," said the New Orleans juvenile detective Mason Spong. Correspondence and films seized in the raids came "from Australia and Canada and virtually every state in the Union."[^1]
+Richards's films led Tennessee authorities to raid Boys Farm Inc. near Alto, the [[Father Bud's Boys Farm]] of the Episcopal priest Claudius I. "Bud" [[Claudius Vermilye|Vermilye]] Jr., who was indicted on sixteen counts; its list of more than 270 "active sponsors" included Shelden.[^4][^5] Vermilye's eldest son had disappeared on July 5, 1974. In [[New Orleans]], the leader of Boy Scout [[Troop 137]], Richard Halverson, and twelve other men, including the Massachusetts industrialist [[Richard C. Jacobs]] of Jet Spray Corporation and the realtor Hugh Scott Mellor, were charged with conspiracy; Halverson, a volunteer probation officer, had drawn up applications for state and federal money for homes for boys, and the Louisiana and Tennessee welfare departments had paid for children placed with the groups. "It seems to be like spider webs strung out all over the nation," said the New Orleans juvenile detective Mason Spong. Correspondence and films seized in the raids came "from Australia and Canada and virtually every state in the Union."[^1]
+
+### The Departure and the Virgin Islands Trust
+
+In a deposition taken in Amsterdam in 1982 in litigation over his trust, Shelden testified that in July 1976 he received a telephone call from Dyer Grossman, who told him that Gerald Richards was having severe "difficulties," that Richards might involve Shelden in them, and that Shelden might become the subject of blackmail by Richards. Shelden testified that Grossman "suggested that it might be wise for me to leave the country for awhile ... to await events." Grossman suggested that Shelden contact Adam Starchild, an offshore investment counselor in New Jersey, whom Shelden had never met. Shelden took his securities, which he valued at about two million dollars, from his bank safety deposit box to New Jersey, where they were lodged in a vault at the Mid-Atlantic Bank of New Jersey; a loan was obtained against some of the shares, and two bank accounts of between 30,000 and 40,000 dollars were opened, one in Shelden's name and one in Starchild's, which Shelden said was "so he would have some money for administering my affairs." Shelden then flew to Europe by way of Canada and the Bahamas.[^3]
+
+A meeting at Shelden's house in Antigua was attended by Shelden, his brother Alger Shelden, Jr., L. Bennett Young and Starchild. The trust instrument was signed on September 28, 1976, by Shelden as settlor and by the Trust Company of the Virgin Islands, Ltd., through Starchild, as trustee.[^3] In December 1976, Shelden testified, Starchild told him by telephone that the State of Michigan had issued criminal warrants for his arrest and that Starchild was coming under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[^3]
+
+The opinion records the complaint's averment that Shelden was being sought by the FBI under a fugitive warrant and that his whereabouts were unknown to the National Bank of Detroit.[^3]
 
 ### Amsterdam
 
@@ -46,4 +59,7 @@ Shelden settled in [[Amsterdam]], became a Dutch citizen, and was not extradited
 ### Footnotes
 
 [^1]: Wright, Marilyn. "Porno Ring Uses Church, Tax Laws," "Porn Ring Finds Gaps in Child Camp Laws" and "Porno Ring Weaves International 'Web'." *Traverse City Record-Eagle,* 1976-1977, reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime. *Sexual Exploitation of Children,* hearings, 95th Congress, 1st session, Serial No. 12, 1977. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041
-[^2]: Dovey, S. *Eye of the Chickenhawk.* Thehotstar, 2023. Sole source for the passages so cited.
+[^2]: Dovey, S. *Eye of the Chickenhawk.* Thehotstar, 2023.
+[^3]: *National Bank of Detroit v. Shelden,* 730 F.2d 421 (6th Cir. 1984) (Nos. 82-1737, 82-1905). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/433085/national-bank-of-detroit-v-francis-d-shelden-the-trust-company-of-the/
+[^4]: Marilyn Wright, *Traverse City Record-Eagle,* reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, *Sexual Exploitation of Children,* hearings, 95th Congress, 1st session, Serial No. 12, 1977, p. 88. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041
+[^5]: "How Ruses Lure Victims to Child Pornographers," *Chicago Tribune,* May 17, 1977, Exhibit D-8, reprinted in *Sexual Exploitation of Children,* Serial No. 12, 1977, p. 440. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041