Children Slipping Through the Cracks BY RUSSELL FISH Frank McCorkle Lombard, the Associate Director, Health Inequalities Program of Duke University has been charged with a violation of Title 18, USC, Section 2422(a), engaging in interstate prostitution. According to the affidavit in support of the arrest warrant, Lombard was identified by a confidential informant as one of a group of individuals involved in the sexual abuse and molestation of children. As described by the informant, Lombard had provided a live video feed of himself performing a sex act on a child. He explained that the child was an adopted child, one of two adopted African American children; that he had a live-in gay male partner who did not participate in the sexual abuse, and that he had allowed other individuals to sexually molest the child. On June 23, an undercover officer engaged Lombard in online conversation using Yahoo! Instant Messenger. During that conversation Lombard stated that he had sexually molested his adopted, male, African American child who he had adopted as an infant and was currently five-years-old. He further advised the officer that the child had performed a specific sex act on him and that he had performed a series of specific sex acts on the child. He further stated that the abuse of the child was easier when the child was too young to talk or know what was happening, but that he had drugged the child with Benadryl during the molestation. During a subsequent conversation, Lombard sent the officer a photo of his adopted son and invited the officer to fly to Durham in order to have sexual contact with the boy. According to the affidavit, there would be no limits on the sexual activity he could engage in with the 5-year-old adopted child. Prior to his arrest, Lombard was active in a variety of professional, religious and community organizations. Most of these groups have erased his existence from their online sites, but thanks to the WEB caches, many of these affiliations are still visible and may provide some insight into his behavior. Duke University has removed his bio, but an early WEB cache indicates until his arrest he was scheduled to teach Introduction to US Health Care System. Duke University has been particularly aggressive scrubbing even the recent WEB caches of any mention of Lombard. The Center for Health Policy Health Inequalities Program at Duke University maintains an extensive WEB site detailing the accomplishments of its staff. The current site makes no mention of Lombard. However, the WEB cache lists him as Project Director for Expansion: Capacity Building for Persons with HIV, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Diagnoses and HIV Integration Health Outcomes Project Evaluation (HIHOPE). He is listed as Principal Investigator for Piedmont HIV Integrated Community Access System. Investigation by The Dallas Examiner has determined that a "Frank Lombard" was a resident of "co-housing" commune known as Eno Commons. Co-housing communities feature independent homes often combined with shared cooking, eating, and play areas. Residents are usually people who want more interaction with their neighbors. Following Lombard's arrest, community members denied reporters access to the commune. According to the WEB cache, the Eno Commons consists of 38 adults and 22 children. Eleven percent of the population is described as 'people of color', all children. The new WEB site promotes Eno Commons as a "Paradise for Children". However, a cached version of the site proudly announced, "Open to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and/or Transgender members" and featured a link to a story on homosexual parenting. According to the WEB cache, Lombard was a member of the Vestry of Episcopal Church of the Advocate. The vestry is responsible for managing the church's health and development. On the sanitized page, he is referred to as "inactive." His Facebook page is gone, but the WEB cache proudly announced Lombard is a fan of Bishop Gene Robinson. Robinson is bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire who left his wife and two daughters to "marry" his partner, Mark Anthony. This is The Dallas Examiner’s first in a series of stories on the Lombard case. The "Sex Slave" link in the upper right of www.dallasexaminer.com will link readers to the archive of documents referenced in our stories as well as to black blogs that have been discussing the relationship between Lombard and his adopted son.