WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) – Frank Lombard, a White Duke University official, arrested and charged with attempting to persuade an undercover officer to travel to North Carolina to have sex with his five-year-old Black adopted son has been arraigned and is awaiting trial here.
His case is being tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and if convicted Mr. Lombard, 42, could receive a maximum sentence of 20 years. He was arrested June 24.
According to the FBI, the criminal complaint alleges FBI/Metropolitan Police Department Child Exploitation Task Force members were told by a confidential source that he/she had witnessed on three or four occasions an individual, alleged to be Mr. Lombard, performing oral sex and other sex acts on a child believed to be under the age of 10.
›The confidential source indicated he was told that others had also sexually molested the child. The source was told the individual’s live-in, male partner had not participated in the sexual abuse, according to the FBI.
The complaint alleges that Mr. Lombard subsequently told Timothy Palchak, an MPD detective posing online as an interested party, that he had performed multiple sexual acts on his adopted son and invited Mr. Palchak to do the same if he flew to the Raleigh/Durham area.
When asked how he was able to get access to the boy, “Adopted,” Mr. Lombard replied, and said that the process was “not so hard … esp (sic) for a Black boy,” according to the authorities.
Mr. Lombard’s arrest was reportedly not the first time he came to the attention of someone. According to the affidavit, in January 2007 a complaint was filed against Mr. Lombard by another online chat user. That user alleged Mr. Lombard said he “was into incest” and had adopted two Black children. Mr. Lombard alledgedly used a private video chat room to broadcast his abuse of his child.
“Sadly this brutal and sadistic barbarian treatment is why a number of us have opposed since 1973 trans-racial adoptions especially with single White men adopting Black boys,” Leonard Dunston, former president of the National Association of Black Social Workers, told The Final Call.
“This helpless Black boy’s life is destroyed forever. The trauma, physical and mental, literally assures him of being another Black male statistic. This tragic incident requires policy makers to rethink the longterm implications of the Multi Ethnic Placement Act. The policy issues need to be reassessed,” Mr. Dunston said.
According to the Dept. of Health and Human Services website the Multi-ethnic Placement Act (MEPA) was enacted in 1994 to promote the best interests of children by ensuring that they have permanent, safe, stable, and loving homes that will meet their individual needs.
The concern was for Black and other minority children who were and continue to be dramatically over-represented at all stages of the foster care system, wait far longer than Caucasian children for adoption, and are at far greater risk of never experiencing a permanent home.
Congress found that the most salient factors that contribute to placement delays and denials were racial and ethnic matching policies and the practices of public agencies which historically discouraged members of minority communities from becoming foster or adoptive parents.
MEPA addressed these concerns by prohibiting the use of a child’s or a prospective parent’s race, color, or national origin to delay or deny the child’s placement and by requiring diligent efforts to expand the number of racially and ethnically diverse foster and adoptive parents.
“There’s still so much that we don’t know about these adoptions. Were they public or private? There are so few Black parents able to pay the fees required with private adoptions that others with the money can afford,” said Toni Oliver, founder and president of Atlanta’s Roots Adoption Agency.
“African American children are overrepresented in the system. It’s easier to find an African American child than a White child. In a placement it’s impossible to know everything about a family or people’s motivation to adopt. This man has devalued the children he has. He’s just sick.”
Ms. Oliver works diligently to recruit more Black parents to adopt.
“Think beyond your needs. We have too many Black children in the foster care systems that need us. It’s much easier to adopt today,” she said.
›