2.7 KiB
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| Organized Crime |
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Former Adelphi Academies maintenance man who organized New Orleans Boy Scout Troop 137 with Richard Halvorsen in 1974; arrested in September 1976 and convicted by May 1977. |
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2026-04-28 | 2026-09-22 |
Raymond T. Woodall worked with Richard Halvorsen as a maintenance man at the Adelphi Academies in Coral Gables, Florida, identified by Florida police as a former male prostitution front, before the two moved to New Orleans, where in 1974 they organized Boy Scout Troop 137 with about 40 boys and selected about ten for Scout trips during which sexual acts took place. New Orleans police arrested him and Halvorsen in September 1976, and by May 1977 both had been convicted and were awaiting sentence. Police said Woodall's address book contained the name of John David Norman, then in the Illinois state prison at Pontiac, whose ring, according to the Chicago police, sent boys around the country to a network of clients.1
The Escort Service
Woodall was said to have run an escort service that began with adult prostitutes and turned to boys from the troop; his associate Lewis Sialle, testifying under immunity, quoted him: "They'll get $50, a good meal and all that jazz." The case was said to have broken when film found in a commercial processing machine in Dallas, Texas was traced to the assistant scoutmaster Harry O. Cramer, and Woodall to have been arrested with Halvorsen and Robert Lang. The operation was connected to Father Bud's Boys Farm in Tennessee, run by Claudius Vermilye.2
Footnotes
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Wright, Marilyn. Traverse City Record-Eagle, 1976-1977, and Chicago Tribune, May 1977, both 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, pp. 439-443; the Tribune piece also in U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation, hearings, 1977. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041 ↩︎
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Dovey, S. Eye of the Chickenhawk. Thehotstar, 2023. Sole source for the passages so cited. It spells the assistant scoutmaster "Harry O'Cramer"; the hearing record and Louisiana Supreme Court captions give Harry O. Cramer. Robert Lang does not appear in the 1977 hearing record. ↩︎