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Barnes & Lebow Can’t Tell the Truth • Twitter Revolt Against ADL • “PARADE” Fools Broadway, Again • Stew Peters’ ADL Exposé

Roy Barnes and Steven Lebow:

Why do you continue to tell the “Big Lies” ?

In another one of his now tiresome interviews former governor Roy Barnes continues to repeat lie after lie after lie about the murder of my great aunt Mary Phagan by her employer, Leo Frank, sexual pervert [Atlanta Constitution, May 20, 1913]. Author Steve Oney also stated Leo Frank was a “sexual predator” [“History of Antisemitism: The Truths and Mysteries of Leo Frank,” webinar, August 29, 2023]. According to Barnes in his June 23, 2023 interview with the Marietta Daily Journal, “The case has always fascinated me. For several years we’ve been trying to exonerate (Frank)....I think here should be a new trial and exoneration that his conviction be vacated and that a new trial and exoneration ought to be entered. That’s what we’re exploring right now.” But to “exonerate” Frank, Barnes and his fabricating cohort Rabbi Steven Lebow have to lie shamelessly to conceal the truth of Frank’s horrific crime. They work behind the scenes with leaders of the Marietta Jewish community and the ADL IN SECRET using their political influence to “bamboozle” the unsuspecting public about the crimes of Leo Frank. Here are some CORRECTIONS to their endless public perjuries:

Lie: They say Frank was lynched by the “Knights of Mary Phagan.” Truth: There were no “Knights of Mary Phagan.” 7 weeks before Leo Frank was lynched, the New York Times invented the term “Knights of Mary Phagan.” The lynchers never called themselves by that name. [New York Times, June 26, 1915] They called themselves the Vigilance Committee. [Called Vigilance Committee in Jeffersonian, August 19 and 26, 1915].

Lie: The Ku Klux Klan was re-formed out of the “Knights of Mary Phagan” in 1915. Truth: The 1915 blockbuster film Birth of a Nation was the reason for the rebirth of the KKK—not the New York Times-invented “Knights of Mary Phagan.” The KKK “did not exist during the trial of Leo Frank and apparently 3 members of the Frank lynch party attended the ceremony on Thanksgiving Day 1915 at Stone Mountain.” [Steve Oney, “History of Antisemitism: The Truths and Mysteries of Leo Frank,” webinar, August 29, 2023]

Lie: Barnes told some law students that if they want to understand the “miscarriage of justice” they should read the book And The Dead Shall Rise by Steve Oney. [Walter F George Law School, November 12, 2019, Macon, Georgia] Truth: When asked if the trial jury “ignored the facts in the case,” Oney responded: “No, I think there was a reasonable case against Leo Frank.” Steve Oney [“History of Antisemitism: The Truths and Mysteries of Leo Frank,” webinar, August 29, 2023] stated that both “Jim Conley and Frank had opportunity depending on your perspective. They might each have a motive. Hard to explain all the females who testified against Leo Frank, both at the trial and the May 8, 1913 coroner’s inquest.” Even Governor John Slaton, who under political pressure commuted Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment, wrote: “The Supreme Court... determined as a matter of law, and correctly in my judgment, that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the [guilty] verdict.” [Slaton Commutation, June 21, 1915]

Lie: Trial Judge Leonard Roan believed Frank was innocent. Truth: This fantasy is simply made up by Barnes & Lebow. Judge Roan presided over the entire trial. He had the power to call a mistrial, to annul the verdict, to impose a life sentence. He CHOSE to sentence Leo

Roy Barnes & Steven Lebow JUST Can’t Stop LYING

Frank to death by hanging!—the most severe penalty. Lie: Two Supreme Court justices found that Frank did not have a fair trial. Truth: Leo Frank had a fair trial. After losing 12 successive court appeals, Frank’s lawyers went to the US Supreme Court, which REFUSED his 13th appeal, voting 7-2. In a statement, the two dissenters—Holmes and Hughes — simply affirmed that generally trials should not be carried out under mob rule. The Justices never actually reviewed the Frank trial. Indeed, as Governor Slaton pointed out, the case record shows there were no anti-Semitic mobs in or outside the courtroom. [United States Supreme Court, April 19, 1915; Slaton Commutation, June 21, 1915] For years Roy Barnes and Steven Lebow have been promoting a fraudulent narrative about the Frank case, and in particular that the 1913 trial was illegitimate because it was “mob- dominated.” Barnes falsely claimed that “there were just mobs of people. And as the jury would go [to] the courthouse every day, the mob would scream, ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you!’” This charge is a blatant lie that has been disproven by the scholars of the case including the ADL’s own expert, Steve Oney. It was made up long after the trial by an overzealous writer trying to make a name for himself. Only Barnes & Lebow continue to repeat the falsehood. For this and many other reasons Roy Barnes and Steven Lebow are simply unfit to participate in any serious inquiry into the Leo Frank case.

Parade Fools Broadway—Again

When Alfred Uhry’s play Parade opened on Broadway starring Tony Award-winner Ben Platt, its audience was told they would be watching a “historical drama about the false conviction of Leo Frank.” Alfred Uhry’s much ballyhooed fantasy script is almost childlike in its handling of the case, making sure that its propaganda value is foremost throughout. After protests (that may have been staged for heightened publicity) marred its opening day performance, the “play” received acclaim from the Broadway press and was among the winners at this year’s Tony Awards. It won Best Revival of a Musical and Best Direction of a Musical. The play then went to Australia, where its director Erik McGinnis made this astounding claim: “Well, when telling a true story, you always want to be as accurate as you possibly can. So with that said, I, along with my team and many of the cast members, have spent many hours poring over research of not only the Leo Frank case, but the time period. It is such an important moment in our country’s history that is so rarely spoken about, so it was of utmost importance to us that everything be completely accurate.” Of course, Frank’s backers can believe in anything they wish to believe in. We, however, must be extremely cautious about being unwitting servants to this massive Leo Frank illusion. As the popular story goes, Leo Frank was “wrongfully convicted” for the murder of a defenseless child—but those who have worked unceasingly to exonerate the Jewish man have worked equally hard to pin this heinous crime on a Black man! For 100 years the name of James “Jim” Conley has been scapegoated in nearly all the Jewish-produced literature on the case. He was a janitor in the factory on the day of the murder, and he admits to being called by his boss Leo Frank to help move the girl’s body. But later Frank and his supporters moved to pin the entire crime on Conley! Uhry’s Parade casts the Black man as a devious criminal who gets away with murder. THIS IS RACISM IN ITS WORST FORM!

Checkmates ADL’s Leo Frank Lies

Greenblatt’s Tweet [4.4 million views] Infuriates Thousands

ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt got a rude awakening after his August 17th Tweet commemorating the lynching of ADL father, rapist, and murderer Leo Frank. Stew Peters covered the incident on his show and commented, “The ADL got something unexpected: The new Twitter or X ‘community notes’ system – where people can add helpful, factual notes to the bottom of tweets.” “Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, the ADL practically ran Twitter’s censorship regime. Well now, censorship is at least superficially mostly gone and the fact-checking is in the hands of the people,” said Peters. “[Leo Frank] raped and murdered a 13-year-old white girl and tried to frame the illiterate black night janitor,” the community notes attached to Greenblatt’s post read. “His pardon, 73 years after his death, does not clear him of the accused crime and was likely politically-motivated,” the community notes went on to say, citing multiple web links. Twitter’s Community Notes feature BLEW UP the ADL’s Leo Frank narrative. Stew Peters went on to recount the indictment of Leo Frank, in which multiple Jewish grand jury members voted to charge the killer with the rape and murder of a child, even as Frank’s defense tried to blame a black maintenance worker named Jim Conley for the crime. It didn’t work, even in the Jim Crow South. In fact, at Frank’s trial, “a huge number of witnesses” blamed Frank for the crime, and Jim Conley was crossexamined for a whopping 16 hours but still refused to accept Frank’s blame. “Frank’s defense team also

made outlandish,
racist attacks on Conley,” detailed Peters. “One of Frank’s attorneys said quote ‘Conley is a plain, beastly, drunken, filthy, lying N-word with a spreading nose through which tons of cocaine have probably been sniffed.’” “That’s the defense argument that the ADL was created to promote,” said Peters.

Stew Peters Exposes the ADL’s Pedophile Origins

Journalist Stew Peters EXPOSED the Anti- Defamation League’s shady origins in a recent segment of the Stew Peters Show, harkening back to the birth of the ADL, which was formed to defend convicted murderer Leo Frank while accusing those who sought justice, including the child victim’s family, of “anti- Semitism.” “It’s time for a little history lesson about the Anti-Defamation League,” Peters said at the segment’s opening, before exposing the ADL’s ties to Israeli intelligence and anti- American spy rings, then dropping the hammer, reminding the American People that the far-left ADL is rooted in the defense of a murderous pedophile and the actual defamation of an innocent black man. “The ADL’s origins go back more than 100 years. They go to an infamous murder case in Georgia,” explained Peters. “Leo Frank was the Jewish manager of a factory in Atlanta that relied on child labor,” Peters went on. “One of Frank’s workers, a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan, was ound raped and murdered in that factory.” “Frank was put on trial, convicted ultimately and unanimously despite hiring the best legal team that money could buy, and [was] sentenced to death,” said Peters. “But, after heavy political lobbying, Georgia’s Governor commuted Frank’s sentence to life in prison. So an outraged group of Georgia citizens ...broke into Frank’s jail, kidnapped him, and hanged him in Marietta, Georgia.” Years later, thanks to massive political pressure from the ADL, Frank was given a symbolic pardon by Georgia’s state government, even over the objections of young ary Phagan’s family, who, as Peters explained in the segment, “strongly believed that Frank was guilty....Last week, ADL leader Jonathan Greenblatt marked the anniversary of Frank’s death with a tweet, calling him the victim of an unjust conviction motivated by, of course, antisemitism.”

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Broadway play PARADE IS NOT THE “TRUE STORY” OF LEO FRANK

Its sole purpose is to falsely place blame for the murder of Little Mary Phagan on an African-American man named James Conley.

New York City Center (NYCC) has announced that it will present one of the most blatantly deceitful productions ever to appear on an American stage. Parade purports to be a “true account” of the 1913 rape and strangulation murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan in an Atlanta factory. Leo Frank, the factory manager, was arrested and convicted of the crime. I am Mary Phagan-Kean, and I represent the family of Mary Phagan. She was more than a faceless victim of a century-old murder; she was my great aunt and she is the one for whom I am named. I have studied this landmark case and after thousands of research hours I wrote a book on the case titled The Murder of Little Mary Phagan. What the management of NYCC may not know is that when they chose to stage the play Parade, they made themselves part of a cynical attempt to rewrite history and to hide one of the most racist chapters in American history. NYCC’s mission statement claims that they are “committed to being an anti-racist organization.” It further states that they will “Conduct internal and external listening and learning sessions to recognize the challenges faced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in society while we identify and reject white privilege in all its forms throughout our organization and industry.” Well, if this is so, then Parade represents a firm step by NYCC in the opposite direction. NYCC chose The Telsey Office to be the casting agency for Parade, and they say this on their website: “We are constantly and endlessly striving to be an actively anti-racist organization through education, communication, and most importantly, measurable action. This includes being unafraid to have uncomfortable conversations...”

Let me be clear, on behalf of the Phagan family: For over a century, powerful members of the Jewish community have taken on Leo Frank as a cause celebre. They falsely claim that Frank was a victim of anti-Semitism and they have mounted an “actively racist” campaign to exonerate him. A major part of that propaganda campaign is Alfred Uhry’s play Parade. But Uhry and those who promote Parade have concealed the fact that Leo Frank and his supporters employed the most racist of tactics to elude justice. Once Frank was accused of the brutal murder of Mary Phagan, he and his team of lawyers attempted to pin the blame on two innocent African American men! The New York City Center and The Telsey Office have now made themselves part of that racist campaign. Here is what scholars of the case have admitted: Dr. Jeffrey Melnick wrote that the supporters of Leo Frank “proved willing to employ racist thinking...”

Theodore Rosengarten wrote that “Frank’s lawyers played the race card for all it was worth.” Even The Telsey Office’s description of Mr. Conley in their casting call is completely inaccurate and full of the same ugly stereotypes promoted by Leo Frank’s defense team. It reads: "[JIM CONLEY] Character is male, 20s, Black. Janitor who works for Leo Frank.... Secretly, he is a convict on the run. Pompous showman with a strong build." (So much for “constantly and endlessly striving to be an actively anti-racist organization through education.”) Further, Alfred Uhry’s Parade demands that we ignore sworn testimony of Leo Frank’s sexual crimes against girls and young women, even before the murder of Little Mary Phagan. Frank, it is now clear, was very much the Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein of his era. At least 20 young women and girls Frank employed at the factory he managed testified of how they were victims of his sexual harassment. In 1913, they did not have the #MeToo movement to stand up for them.

A recently published 536-page book titled The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, by the Nation of Islam (NOI), uncovers new facts showing that Frank and his legal team engaged in one of the most racist trial defenses in American history. The Phagan family has provided physical copies of this book to the NYCC management and staff and media for their own review. Below are some well-researched facts (along with the relevant pages of the book). Are NYCC and Telsey truly “unafraid to have uncomfortable conversations” about the truth of Leo Frank?:

• Leo Frank, as leader of B’nai B’rith, publicly and openly used the N-word in referring to African Americans. His defense attorneys used the N-word and many other racist slurs dozens of times in his murder trial. Frank’s main attorney told the jury: “If you put a [N-word] in a hopper, he’ll drip lies.” (Pages 121-133, 363.)

• The ADL’s claims that anti-Semitic crowds mobbed the courtroom screaming for Leo Frank’s blood are totally false. The ADL’s own expert Steve Oney writes: “It didn’t happen. It was something that someone wrote a couple of years after the crime...” Leo Frank himself told a Jewish newspaper publisher: “Anti-Semitism is absolutely not the reason for this libel [murder conviction] that has been framed against me. It isn’t the source nor the result of this sad story.” (Pages 142, 162-171.)

• The 23-member grand jury that indicted Frank for murder included five prominent members of the Jewish community. (See pages 52, notes 102-106; 88 n. 181; 146-147; 160; 212;
338.)

• Leo Frank argued in court that the many African American witnesses that testified should not be believed—simply because they were black—and that “negro testimony” was by definition inferior and unreliable. Further, Frank argued to the all-white jury that murder, rape, and robbery were “negro crimes” and thus, he, a white man, could not have committed the murder of Mary Phagan. (Pages 124-136.)

• Leo Frank personally hired two of the most prominent (and expensive) private detective agencies in America— the Pinkerton and Burns agencies— and both concluded that Leo Frank was the murderer of Mary Phagan. (Pages 47-48; 65-66; 91 note 187; 147; 247.)

• Leo Frank’s own maid, Minola McKnight, swore under oath that Frank’s wife and her mother discussed how Frank had confessed that he had killed a girl. (Pages 378-379, 423-
428.)

• Before Leo Frank accused his employee, James Conley of the crime, Frank accused the African American night watchman who found Mary’s body, Newt Lee. Frank’s hired private eyes actively targeted Lee and actually planted a blood-soaked shirt in the innocent man’s home, and then told the police where they could find that damning “evidence.” At the same time, Frank altered Lee’s workplace time card in order to make Lee the prime suspect. (Pages 35-44.)

• Jewish businessman Albert Lasker financed Frank’s legal defense. His private view of the B’nai B’rith president was harsh and disturbing: “He impressed us as a sexual pervert. Now, he may not have been, or rather a homosexual or something like that.” Lasker said, “I hope he gets out [of prison]…and when he gets out I hope he slips on a banana peel and breaks his neck.” (Pages 216- 217, 254-255, 322.)

• The New York Times reported that Frank’s supporters tried to hire an African-American woman to poison Mr. Conley. She identified the plotters in open court as prominent members of the Jewish community. (Pages 262-263.)

• In court Leo Frank refused to take an oath on the Bible, and then refused to be cross-examined by prosecutors. (Pages 136-140, 362-382.)

• Leo Frank’s attorneys fought tooth and nail to keep Blacks from participating in any part of Frank’s trial. They used their power to eliminate Blacks from the jury pool. (Page 88.)

• Several of Frank’s strongest advocates—including his main lawyer and the man who financed his legal appeals— were both Jewish and open and active members of the American eugenics movement. (Pages 217, 221-222.)

• In 1982 a “witness” named Alonzo Mann materialized, claiming that he was at the factory in 1913 on the day of the murder and saw Conley carrying the body of Mary Phagan. I actually interviewed Mr. Mann in my home on July 19, 1983, for four hours. But Mann had given as many as six conflicting stories that are irreconcilable with the known facts. (Pages 435-464.)

There is much, much more that can and will be presented about the murder of Mary Phagan by Leo Frank. The New York City Center management says they are committed to “anti-racism,” but will they continue to perpetuate one of the most racist hoaxes in American history?

Will they “reject white privilege” and confront Leo Frank’s deceitful supporters, or will Parade revenues override their anti-racist commitments?

Will the facts the Phagan family has raised be a part of their “internal and external listening and learning sessions,” or will Leo Frank’s propagandists be their only source?

Scholars Slam “Fictional” Parade Frankly, no serious scholars of this case have ever taken the Leo Frank Broadway Musical "Parade" by Jason Robert Brown, Harold Prince, and Alfred Uhrey, as anything other than a made-up fairy tale to advance a political agenda. Boston University professor Dr. Jeffrey Melnick is author of a book published in the year 2000, about the Leo Frank case, Black–Jewish Relations on Trial: “Uhry has romantic, nostalgic ideas of Southern Jewish culture. I’m pretty critical of him.” “I’m clearly in a strange position of agreeing with a lot of what the Nation of Islam has to say…” In fact, Dr. Melnick was asked directly whether he felt Frank was really guilty. He answered, “I studied all I could and I can’t figure it out still.”

Dr. Melnick says of the Nation of Islam book: “They say this really great thing about how Frank has been used, how Frank has been picked up as this 1915 Jewish martyr who then we used to read backward into Southern history to say Jews have always been in a parallel position to African-Americans. It’s not a defensible story. As a Jewish-American raised on stories of victimhood and vulnerability, I recognize the way these stories are used for sympathy. The Frank case is a zero-sum battle. If Frank didn’t do it, someone black had to do it.” Journalist Steve Oney is the ADL expert on the case. He penned a book of 742 pages titled The Dead Shall Rise: “Uhry took dramatic license to bring the story to life. It’s a play. It’s not a history. It’s a play based on facts. I don’t think Alfred Uhry would tell you it’s the truth. It’s the truth as they see it, as they dramatized it.” Alfred Uhry was asked by an interviewer, “What do you hope people will bring away from this musical?” UHRY: “If people are touched, I’ve done my job. This is risky. Sometimes I think, ‘OK, this time they’re going to catch me, I have no talent, they’re going to nail me for the fraud I am.’” EXACTLY.

In 2019, Pennsylvania College Students at Point Park University in Pittsburgh “rejected the Alfred Uhry play PARADE and the school CANCELLED its performance. For years Uhry, the writer of the movie Driving Miss Daisy, has promoted PARADE as the ‘true story’ of the Leo Frank case.” According to the Jewish Chronicle, “some Point Park students...took issue with the show’s conclusion that implies that Jim Conley, a black janitor and Frank’s main accuser, was the actual perpetrator of the crimes...” Students at Point Park determined that they would not be a part of racist propaganda. Is NYCC Serious About Truthful Dialogue? If one reads the old newspapers, one will not see any mobs or read about any anti-Semitism. Read many of those articles on LittleMaryPhagan.com. Our family has made these historical documents available to the public. Nowhere can it be found in the original newspapers that there was a “mob outside of the courtroom shouting antisemitic slurs,” as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has promoted for decades with absolutely no proof. Even Frank’s “savior,” Gov. John Slaton, acknowledged that reality and the fact that the Jewish people were respected members of society in Georgia at the time.

The religion of Leo Frank played no role in his guilty verdict or his death sentence (execution by hanging) or his lynching. The facts of the murder case and the cache of damning evidence pointed convincingly to Frank having committed a reprehensible crime. Oddly enough, it was Frank’s own mother who brought religion into the trial by embarrassing herself in court by shouting of anti-Christian slurs at the prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey.

Author Steve Oney is considered by the ADL to be their top authority. He reported: “To the extent that there was bias in the coverage, it was mostly in Frank’s favor…” He goes on to state that Atlanta’s newspapers, “evincing the prejudices of the time, ridiculed the state’s star witness—a black factory janitor named Jim Conley…” In fact, in the face of damning evidence, Atlanta’s media insisted upon Frank’s innocence and sought to reinforce how much integrity he had as the leader of B’nai B’rith. The three Georgian papers, all with Jewish editors, went along with Frank’s defense team in their racist desire to pin the crime on two separate African-American men. The play PARADE refuses to acknowledge the evidence of Leo Frank’s guilt in this horrible crime. Will the New York City Center continue to spread falsehoods about the case, and further rob the real victim, Little Mary Phagan, and the Phagan family of true justice?

Where the Phagan Family Stands

The Phagan family has no objection to anyone expressing their opinions about the Frank case, but we do insist that organizations and personal campaigns not distort the truth and facts to use this case for their own political purposes. For over 100 years, each passing decade brought with it “new historical evidence” falsely claiming to exonerate Leo Frank. The Phagan family has stated since 1982 that if there were clear-cut evidence to clear Frank of this heinous crime, we would come forward and ask for exoneration. However, such historical evidence has never come to light. Rather, there are considerable data, extensive documentation, revealing archival material, and legal, court, and government records that only support and even strengthen the guilty verdict.

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Georgia Legislators Propose Cold Case Lynching Law But REAL Aim is to Exonerate A Single Person: Leo Frank

There is no more important word in today’s world than JUSTICE. I am Mary Phagan-Kean and I am the great-niece and namesake of “Little Mary Phagan,” the thirteen-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by B’nai B’rith leader Leo Max Frank on April 26, 1913. Leo Frank—who admitted he was the last person to see Mary alive—was the factory manager at the National Pencil Company, where the Sam Nunn federal building stands today, and where Mary worked and was killed. On August 25, 1913, after a month-long trial, he was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and on the next day, Leo M. Frank was sentenced to hang for the murder of his young employee Mary Phagan.

Today I represent the Phagan Family as we seek justice for our fallen ancestor, Mary Phagan, because a politically strong and economically powerful group of people have for more than a century been attempting through propaganda and deception to exonerate her killer—Leo Frank.

Background of HB 1555 In March of this year HB 1555 was introduced by Reps. Mike Wilensky, Sandra Scott, William Boddie, James Beverly, Derrick Jackson, and Carl Gilliard, with, according to news reports, the support of Georgia’s Legislative Black Caucus, the Urban League of Atlanta, the Anti-Defamation League, and the NAACP. The bill would establish the “Georgia Cold Case Project to Address Historic Lynchings and Related Matters.” The Phagan family believes that any and all earnest attempts to gain JUSTICE for the wrongs of the past must be supported and encouraged. HB 1555 appears to intend to achieve that worthy goal, but a careful examination of the issue reveals that it may be yet another attempt to clear Leo Frank of the crime he committed and to pin the crime on a black man named James Conley (pictured on the right). Our family has researched and analyzed this case and the thousands of court documents and newspaper accounts and we reject this effort by Leo Frank’s backers to make an innocent Black man guilty of this horrific crime. Is HB 1555 What It Seems To Be? According to the 2017 report of the Equal Justice Initiative (https://eji.org), at least 589 African Americans were lynched in Georgia between 1877 and 1950. It is a stain on Georgia that Fulton County, where Mary Phagan was murdered, was one of the places in America where lynchings were the highest. These crimes must be accounted for and long-overdue justice must be given to the families of the victims.

However, Rep. Wilensky, in speaking about the aims of HB 1555, did not mention any of those 589 black lynching victims—or the more than 4,000 victims across America. He mentioned just one person—Leo Frank—the convicted murderer and rapist of our ancestor Little Mary Phagan. He only mentioned how the stone marking the site of Leo Frank’s lynching in Marietta was recently vandalized. Rep. Wilensky said, “This is the time this bill should be passed, to bring back and research and look into all these cold cases.”

How Guilty Was Leo Frank? Georgia’s Legislative Black Caucus, the Urban League of Atlanta, and the NAACP are probably not aware of how much generational trauma the Anti-Defamation League has caused the Phagan family in their unceasing efforts to put Leo Frank’s crime on Mr. Conley. The ADL claims that Leo Frank was the victim of “anti-Semitism” and that he was innocent of the murder of Mary Phagan. Rep. Wilensky says he wants “research” done, but extensive research has already been done that conclusively proves that Leo Frank was guilty. In 1987, I authored a book on this subject titled The Murder of Little Mary Phagan (Download the FREE PDF here: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/leo-frank/ mary-phagan.pdf). Further than that, a recently published 536-page book by the Nation of Islam uncovers new facts showing that Frank and his legal team engaged in one of the most racist trial defenses in American history. If the sponsors of HB 1555 were truly interested in researching the Mary Phagan murder case, they need to read both books. The Phagan family has provided physical copies of this book by black scholars of the NOI to the entire Georgia state legislature for their own review. Below are some well-researched facts (along with the relevant pages of the book):

• A 23-member grand jury that included five prominent members of the Jewish community voted for the indictment of Leo Frank. (See pages 52, notes 102-106; 88 n. 181; 146-147;
160; 212; 338.)
• Frank himself told a Jewish newspaper publisher: “Anti-Semitism is absolutely not the reason for this libel [murder conviction] that has been framed against me. It isn’t the
source nor the result of this sad story.” (Page 142.)
• Leo Frank, as leader of B’nai B’rith, publicly and openly used the N-word in referring to African Americans. His defense attorneys used the N-word and other racist slurs
dozens of times in his murder trial. Frank’s main attorney told the jury: “If you put a [N-word] in a hopper, he’ll drip lies.” (Pages 121-133, 363.)
• 20 young women and girls gave such powerful testimony about Leo Frank’s sexual harassment at the factory that none of his many highly paid attorneys dared to cross-examine
them—not one. (Pages 107-123.)
• Frank argued in court that the many Black witnesses that testified should not be believed—simply because they were black—and that “negro testimony” was by definition
inferior and unreliable. Further, Frank argued to the all-white jury that murder, rape, and robbery were “negro crimes” and thus, he, a white man, could not have committed the
murder of Mary Phagan. (Pages 124-136.)
• Frank himself hired two of the most prominent (and expensive) private detective agencies in America—the Pinkerton and Burns agencies—and both concluded that Leo Frank was
the murderer of Mary Phagan. (Pages 47-48; 65-66; 91 note 187; 147; 247.)
• Leo Frank’s own black maid, Minola McKnight, swore that she overheard Frank’s wife and her mother discussing how Frank had confessed that he had killed a girl. (Pages
378-379, 423-428.)
• Before Frank accused his employee James Conley of the crime, Frank accused the African American night watchman who found Mary’s body, Newt Lee. Frank’s hired private eyes
actively targeted Lee and actually planted a blood-soaked shirt in the innocent man’s home, and then told the police where they could find that damning “evidence.” At the same
time, Frank altered Lee’s workplace time card in order to make Lee the prime suspect. (Pages 35-44.)
• Jewish businessman Albert Lasker financed Frank’s legal defense. His private view of the B’nai B’rith president was harsh and disturbing: “he impressed us as a sexual pervert. Now, he may not have been, or rather a homosexual or something like that.” Lasker said, “I hope he gets out…and when he gets out I hope he slips on a banana peel and breaks his neck.” (Pages 216-217, 254-255, 322.)
• The New York Times reported that Frank supporters tried to hire a Black woman named Annie Carter to poison Mr. Conley. She identified the plotters in open court as prominent members of the Jewish community. (Pages 262-263.)
• Leo Frank refused to take an oath on the Bible, and then refused to be cross-examined by prosecutors. (Pages 136-140, 362-382.)
• Leo Frank’s attorneys fought tooth and nail to keep Blacks from participating in any part of Frank’s trial. They used their power to eliminate Blacks from the jury pool. (Page 88)
• Several of Frank’s strongest advocates—including his main lawyer and the man who financed his legal appeals—were both Jewish and open and active members of the American eugenics movement. (Pages 217, 221-222.)
• In 1987 a “witness” named Alonzo Mann materialized, claiming that he was at the factory in 1913 on the day of the murder and saw Conley carrying the body of Mary Phagan. I actually interviewed Mr. Mann in my home on July 19, 1983, for four hours. But Mann had given as many as six conflicting stories that are irreconcilable with the known facts. (Pages 435-464.)

There is much, much more that can and will be presented about the murder of Mary Phagan by Leo Frank. If HB 1555 is intended to get justice for the families of the victims of violence, then the TRUTH about Leo Frank’s murder of Mary Phagan should not be LYNCHED by this bill. Over the course of the many efforts by the ADL to deceitfully clear Leo Frank of his crime, the Phagan family has been purposely excluded from official processes. Georgia’s Century-Old Secrets! HB 1555 is clear about the new process: “Using all available criminal investigation techniques and historical research techniques to investigate, resolve, and, if possible, redress unresolved homicides relating to...historical lynchings.” If this is true, then Reps. Wilensky, Scott, Boddie, Beverly, Jackson, and Gilliard can start by answering why the Georgia government has deemed important documents related to the Leo Frank case “state secrets”! In a time where every state agency and politician is preaching “transparency” and open government, how can anything about a 109-year-old case be considered “SECRET”?! The State Board of Pardons and Paroles will not tell us how many documents remain “classified” in the “state secret” category; nor what exactly those documents contain. Who and What are they protecting, and Why? There can be no justice or resolution of this case if the state of Georgia will not release documents from a 109-year-old case! Censorship Continues The sponsors of HB 1555 should be asking the ADL some hard questions about why they have lurked behind the scenes and pushed to have BOOKS BANNED, YouTube videos removed and to have the internet scrubbed of Georgia and Supreme Court records, and original newspaper links. Thanks to the underhanded actions of the ADL, they are NO LONGER AVAILABLE! What are they trying to hide? If this is NOT the case, then immediately RELEASE THE “SECRET” FILES of the Leo Frank case for all to see.

FACTS ARE NOT HATEFUL!
But the ADL IS DECEITFUL

DECEIT, noun
1. The act or practice of deceiving; deception.
2. A stratagem; a trick.
3. The quality of being deceitful; falseness.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the
English Language, 5th Edition.

The Phagan family has no objection to anyone expressing their opinions about the Frank case, but we do insist that organizations and personal campaigns not distort the truth and facts to use this case for their own political purposes. For over 100 years, each passing decade brought with it “new historical evidence” falsely claiming to exonerate Leo Frank. The Phagan family has stated since 1982 that if there were clear-cut evidence to clear Frank of this heinous crime, we would come forward and ask for exoneration. However, such historical evidence has never come to light. Rather, there are considerable data, extensive documentation, revealing archival material, and legal, court, and government records that only support and even strengthen the guilty verdict.

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DENIED!

Georgia state board of pardons and paroles denies Phagan Family December 4th, 2020, request to declassify the non-public documents from it's files on Leo Frank!!!

Georgia’s 106 Year Old Secrets!

The Phagan family filed requests for all of the documents, recordings, and other data related to the case of the convicted murderer Leo M. Frank. We received over 1500 documents in December 2020, which included Alonzo Mann’s videotaped testimony when certain people and organizations were seeking a posthumous pardon for Leo Frank in the 1980s. But some documents were DENIED to the family and considered “state secrets”? In a time where every state agency and politician is preaching “transparency” and open government, how can anything about a 106-year-old case be considered “SECRET”?! We were not told how many documents remain in the “state secret” category; nor were we told what exactly those documents contain. Who and What are they protecting, and Why? There can be no justice or resolution of this case if the state of Georgia will not release documents from a 106-year-old case! And WHY isn’t the media asking these questions and INSISTING on answers?

Censorship continues:

BOOKS have been BANNED, YouTube Videos have been removed and Georgia and Supreme Court records and Original newspaper links are NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Why?

To “silence the opposing view”? What is the truth of the Leo Frank Case? Truth has become inappropriate or offensive or objectionable and is deemed “hate speech” to impose censorship.

FACTS ARE NOT HATEFUL!!!

Georgia Senator John Ossoff is being compared to Leo Frank.

Will Sen. Ossoff help the Phagan family get to the “truth” of this case? Facts Senator Ossoff should know about Leo Frank: • Leo Frank was prosecuted after a grand jury with five Jewish members indicted him. • All three Georgian newspapers in 1913 had Jewish editors, and they never reported anti-Semitic slurs or shouts either before, during, or after Frank’s trial. • Frank appealed the guilty verdict and lost 13 separate times. • Frank tried to pin the murder of 13-year-old Mary on two different black men, claiming that rape and murder are “negro crimes” and that the blacks who testified against him should be barred because “negro testimony” was invalid. • The claims that the trial was dominated by a mob chanting “Kill the Jew!” were debunked by ADL expert Steve Oney, who said, “It never happened.” • Leo Frank was not lynched because he was Jewish, but because he was a convicted child rapist and murderer. A group calling itself the “vigilance committee” carried out the sentence after Governor John Slaton, on HIS LAST DAY IN OFFICE, commuted Frank’s death sentence.

Why aren’t these facts ever brought up? If one reads the old newspapers, as Oney did, one will not see any mobs or read any anti-Semitism. There were orderly crowds of curious people who patiently waited to get into the courthouse to view the trial, but that was it. Read many of these articles on LittleMaryPhagan.com. We have made them available to the public. Nowhere can it be found in the original newspapers that there was a “mob outside of the courtroom shouting anti- Semitic slurs” at the jurors or anyone else. Even Frank’s “savior,” Gov. Slaton, acknowledged that reality and the fact that the Jewish people were respected members of society in Georgia at the time. The religion of Leo Frank played no role in his guilty verdict or his lynching, which was the result of the reprehensible crime he committed. Oddly enough, it was Frank’s own mother who brought religion into the trial by embarrassing herself in court with the shouting of anti-Christian slurs at the prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey. Steve Oney, author of a 742-page book on the case and considered by the ADL as their top authority, reported: “To the extent that there was bias in the coverage, it was mostly in Frank’s favor…” He goes on to state that Atlanta’s newspapers, “evincing the prejudices of the time, ridiculed the state’s star witness—a black factory janitor named Jim Conley…” In fact, in the face of damning evidence Atlanta’s media insisted upon Frank’s innocence and sought to reinforce how much integrity he had as the leader of B’nai B’rith. The three Georgian papers— all with Jewish editors—went along with Frank’s defense team in their racist desire to pin the crime on two separate African American men—first Newt Lee (the night watchman who discovered the body), and then Jim Conley.

Multiple articles are being written every year memorializing Frank’s lynching, either refusing to acknowledge that Leo Frank could have been guilty (based on the mounds of evidence) or blatantly lying and falsely claiming “anti-Semitic mobs” or Frank’s Jewish background was a major factor in the case. This is highly misleading and only serves to spread untruths about the case, and further robs the real victim, Little Mary Phagan, and the Phagan family of true justice.

Michael Beschloss Embarrasses Himself with Frank Tweet

On January 5, 2021, the noted presidential historian Michael Beschloss, tweeted the false and thoroughly debunked fiction that Jews fled the state of Georgia as a result of the lynching of Leo Frank on August 17, 1915. There is no evidence of this alleged exodus and none of the serious historians of Jewish history will back the claim. Several notable scholars correct Beschloss on that issue:

Alleged Jewish Exodus NEVER OCCURRED

Steven Hertzberg: “[T]here was no dramatic exodus or panic. The Jews were frightened, but most went about their business as usual and no serious incidents occurred.” Albert S. Lindemann “Even in Atlanta, where the Jewish community was deeply shaken by the Frank Affair and where Jewish leaders long opposed efforts to rehabilitate Frank because of the hostility such efforts might revive, Jews continued to move into the city in numbers no less impressive than before the Frank Affair.”

Institute of Southern Jewish Life Study “The Community Grows: Despite the fears stemming from the Frank lynching, Atlanta’s Jewish community continued to grow. In 1910 there had been 4,000 Jews, by 1937 there were 12,000.”

The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 3 “This claim is patently false. The only Jewish exodus from Georgia occurred in 1740, when England banned slavery there. According to historian Rabbi Jacob R. Marcus, Jews left because ‘Negro slavery was prohibited, the liquor traffic was forbidden.’”

Listen & Learn with Audiobooks by the American Mercury

REVIEW: The Murder of Little Mary Phagan is an exceptionally insightful semi-autobiographical book, detailing a fascinating exploration of one of the most sensational criminal cases of all time. What makes this book so intriguing is it provides an intimate view of the Frank-Phagan case from the adult grandniece of the teenage victim — little Mary Anne Phagan, the tragic child laborer who was murdered on April 26, 1913, in Atlanta, Georgia. This true crime monograph is widely regarded as the most even-handed book ever written about the Frank-Phagan affair (1913-1915) and its contentious aftermath (1915-1986). It also provides facts and evidence about the case found in no other book. Mary Phagan Kean also offers a uniquely neutral analysis of the monthlong capital murder trial which ended in Frank’s conviction. Mary Phagan Kean is the namesake of the murder victim, Mary Phagan, being her grandniece. When the author was 13 years old, she discovered her given name was no mere accident or coincidence. When people heard her name, they started asking her questions about whether she was related to the famous little Mary Phagan who had been murdered long ago by Leo Frank on Confederate Memorial Day in 1913. When her family revealed the truth about her blood relation, she immediately became deeply interested in learning about the murder, its investigation, and its aftermath. She has since devoted thousands of hours of her life studying volumes of legal documents, conducting interviews, and reading every surviving newspaper account of the case. This written-from-theheart book is the result. Download the complete audio book as one zip file. You can also download the individual chapters. https://www.maryphagan.org/category/video-collection/murder-of-little-mary-phagan-video-collection/

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Will New District Attorney Bow to Pressure to Exonerate Leo Frank for Murder of Little Mary Phagan?

Attorney Fani Willis beat Fulton County DA Paul Howard Jr. in a landslide victory —72% to 28% But will she bow to the same pressure that was put on her former boss to exonerate a man who raped and murdered our family member? The Conviction Integrity Unit established under Fulton County DA Paul Howard was not transparent: the Phagan family was not contacted and he refused to acknowledge the Phagan family. Obviously, it was set up for one single goal—to “legally” clear Leo Frank of a heinous murder—and to pin his crime on a Black man! The recent D.A. election victor Fani Willis is making strong statements about her integrity and skill, but so did Howard before succumbing to the behind-the scenes pressure from the ADL, ex-governor Roy Barnes, and Rabbi Steven Lebow, whose apparent goal has been to lie their way to victory. Fani Willis is quoted recently in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“Cases won’t be for sale under my administration. Not for an endorsement, not for money, not for anything.” “You have my word, during my tenure as district attorney in Fulton County, we will become a beacon for justice and ethics in Georgia and across the nation.” “Willis vowed to bring ‘transparency and accountability’ to the DA’s office.” [Willis] “announced she intends to clean house in the Public Integrity Unity, which handles police-involved shootings.” How about cleaning house in the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU)? So, how is it that Leo Frank—a privileged white rich man convicted of murder and having exhausted every possible court appeals process, and having been previously rejected as a pardon candidate—now gets a CIU Review? For over a century, propaganda has masqueraded as “new evidence”: there have been plays, articles, books, videos, movies, dramas claiming death-bed confessions, bite marks and teeth x-rays (no evidence), and anti-Semitic pogroms (no evidence). Virtually all these works have simply disregarded the physical evidence to claim that an African American man named James Conley committed the crime. They ignore Conley’s riveting 15- hour testimony under oath that proved Frank was the murderer. Frank himself refused to testify and would not be sworn at his own trial. Nor would his attorneys dare to cross-examine twenty young girls who testified that Frank had sexually harassed them constantly—he was the Jeffrey Epstein/Harvey Weinstein of his time! Today, Frank’s advocates rely on the 1982 errorfilled “testimony” of an elderly Alonzo Mann who claimed to see many things in 1913 that simply could not have happened. That is what the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles found when they dismissed his new statements as insufficient to exonerate the murderer. Frank’s advocates made a second attempt at obtaining exoneration in 1986, which resulted in the Parole Board granting a posthumous pardon “without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence.” More recently, requests to the Georgia Governor and the Georgia Legislature (2017 requests denied) have tried to enforce Frank’s innocence but do not provide any new, original evidence that would vacate the original verdict of guilty; rather, they just parrot propaganda of other pro-Frank partisans. Conviction Integrity Unit In 2019, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard established a “Conviction Integrity Unit” that he said would review the Leo Frank murder conviction of 1913. Those named as participants in this move are the following:

• Former Governor Roy Barnes
• Rabbi Steven Lebow
• ADL Attorney Dale Schwartz
• Melissa D. Redmon, director of the UG
Law School
• Former Supreme Court
Justice Leah Ward Sears
• Former Court Chief Justice
Norman Fletcher
• Cobb County Superior
Court Chief Judge J.
Stephen Schuster (Retired)
• Assistant District Attorney
Van Pearlberg

The Family of Mary Phagan believes that these individuals have “colluded” since August of 2018 to find a way to vacate the conviction of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan. Dale Schwartz was quoted thus: “we’re still trying to get a new trial that would, in effect, exonerate him.” Every serious student of the case is aware that in 1914, after his conviction and death sentence, several attempts were made by Frank’s supporters to “exonerate” him using “new evidence” that included planted evidence and false witness affidavits later found to have been obtained by bribery and other illegal means. [See the Atlanta Constitution, May 5, 1914, p. 1.] This corrupt behavior IS STILL GOING ON! According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (May 7, 2019), D.A. Howard stated, “The Frank Case helped inspire the creation of the new unit” and that former Gov. Roy Barnes “will serve as a consultant,” and it was further reported that Barnes “had lobbied the district attorney to reexamine Frank’s case.” Let us be clear what that means. Former Gov. Barnes has swayed, influenced, and brought pressure (political bullying) to bear on the Fulton County DA’s office to reexamine the Frank/Phagan case. Those statements alone convince us that there will be no fair hearing—the Conviction Integrity Unity has already re-adjudicated the Leo Frank case. According to the article, Barnes said he is convinced that this will happen: “‘There is no doubt in my mind, and we’ll [Who is “we?”] prove it at the appropriate time, that Frank was not guilty.’” Former Governor Roy Barnes should recuse himself from this case, as well as members of and “consultants” to the Conviction Integrity Unit who have categorically stated that Frank is not guilty. NO NEW EVIDENCE! After all his big and small deceptions revealed in his February 2020 lecture in Savannah, the ADL’s expert on the Leo Frank case, author Steve Oney, finally got down to the reality that after 107 years of failed attempts to exonerate Frank, D.A. Paul Howard’s new Conviction Integrity Unit will have NO NEW EVIDENCE to make a judgment. Oney told the audience, “I don’t see any new evidence out there” that might add anything new to the case. This is a bombshell because D.A. Paul Howard has said, “The unit will investigate claims of actual innocence to determine whether new evidence or facts may prove a convicted defendant didn’t commit the offense.” Howard went further: “The CIU will review cases in which there is new factual, physical, or forensic evidence. The unit will also review cases in which there is relevant evidence that went untested at the time of trial or some other new evidence that a person was convicted wrongfully.” Aimee Maxwell, the director of the D.A.’s Conviction Integrity Unit, was interviewed on WABE’s Closer Look program and was asked, “What is the criteria” for evaluating a case? Ms. Maxwell answered: “Well, for actual innocence, what we’re really looking at is some new evidence—evidence that a court hasn’t looked at...” The fact is, every bit of “new evidence” only supports the verdict of guilty. The new CIU established by D.A. Paul Howard, and now headed by D.A. Fani Willis, has been made aware of the serious perjuries that have been told to exonerate Frank and to posthumously convict the African American man who Frank set up to take the fall. This is not a theory—this is a documented fact. Will the D.A.’s Conviction Integrity Unit continue the deception? History shows that the integrity of Frank’s conviction is secure. The integrity of the District Attorney and her office is what really is at stake. The Hypocrisy of the Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) & the Leo Frank Case The Inaugural Conviction Integrity Unit Reception was held at the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta on Wednesday, January 8, 2019. The Keynote Speaker was Ambassador Andrew Young, Jr. But what is the Conviction Integrity Unit? According to its own description, “The Conviction Integrity Unit endeavors to review past convictions for credible claims of actual innocence, wrongful conviction, and, where feasible, sentencing inequities. This process is afforded to applicants regardless of whether they are pro se or represented by an attorney. The CIU is committed to ensuring all submissions receive a thorough and equitable review.”

Cases the CIU will review:

1. Claims of actual innocence
2. Claims of Constitutional Violations
3. In the interest of Justice
4. Sentence Modification
5. Cases of Historical Significance

That sounds good, but this CIU was NOT the brainchild of the Fulton County D.A. According to former governor Roy Barnes, a group of pro-Frank crusaders (including himself) brought the Leo Frank case to the D.A. to ask him to exonerate this murderer (and to convict a black man for Frank’s 107-year-old crime!) The Milledgeville Journal reported that “When Howard asked Barnes what he had in mind, Barnes said he wanted to see if he could get the judgment against Frank set aside. Howard said he was open to the idea, but believed if he assembled a team to consider it, the team should look at more than one case [such as Wayne Williams].” So it was already determined that the Leo Frank Case would be reviewed before the announcement of the CIU! The Leo Frank Case did not follow the CIU’s own protocol. Why not?

Same Ol’ Lies, Over & Over

Rabbi Steven Lebow, Jerry Klinger, Allison Padilla-Goodman of the ADL, Barnes, and their ilk continue to push the same lies and distortions. This is why none of them will actually publish any serious or scholarly work on this subject, like the Phagan family has done. It would be considered laughable. Here are some facts that they tried to keep hidden from D.A. Paul Howard: Leo Frank was prosecuted after a grand jury with five Jewish members indicted him.
•
All three Georgian newspapers in 1913 had Jewish editors, and they never reported anti-Semitic slurs or shouts either before, during, or after Frank’s trial.
•
Frank appealed the guilty verdict and lost 13 separate times.
•
The claims that the trial was dominated by a mob chanting “Kill the Jew!” was debunked by their own expert, Steve Oney, who said “It never happened.” Why aren’t these facts ever brought up? If one reads the old newspapers, as Oney did, one will not see any mobs or read any anti-Semitism. There were orderly crowds of curious people who waited to get in to the courthouse to view the trial, but that was it. Read many of these articles on LittleMaryPhagan.com. We have made them available to the public. Why won’t LeBow et al. provide proof of their tired false claims. Nowhere can it be found in the original newspapers that there was a “mob outside of the courtroom shouting anti-Semitic slurs” at the jurors or anyone else. The Jewish people were respected members of society in Georgia at the time as well. The religion of Leo Frank played no role in his guilty verdict or his lynching, which was the result of the reprehensible crime he committed. Oddly enough, it was Frank’s own mother who brought religion into the trial by embarrassing herself in court with the shouting of anti-Christian slurs at the prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey.

Jerry Klinger has made a career out of corrupting the facts of the case even though the provable realities have been presented to him on multiple occasions. Nevertheless he recently wrote that “Georgia media’s reporting encouraged their basest desires, the Jew’s blood,” which is an outright falsehood. Of course, today’s Georgia media can easily check this claim, having full and complete access to all of their own archives. Yet, for some unknown reason they won’t. So, Klinger, Lebow and others can blatantly lie with impunity, never fearing they will be challenged. Author Steve Oney, whose 742-page book is considered by the ADL as their top authority, reported: “To the extent that there was bias in the coverage, it was mostly in Frank’s favor…” He goes on to state that Atlanta’s newspapers, “evincing the prejudices of the time, ridiculed the state’s star witness—a black factory janitor named Jim Conley…” In fact, Atlanta’s media declared Frank an innocent man and when they brought up his Jewish background, it was only to reinforce how much integrity he had as the leader of B’nai B’rith. The three Georgian papers—all with Jewish editors—went along with Frank’s defense team in their racist desire to pin the crime on two separate African American men—first Newt Lee (the night watchman who discovered the body), and then Jim Conley. Multiple articles of the Klinger kind are being written every year memorializing Frank’s lynching, either refusing to acknowledge that Leo Frank could have been guilty (based on the mounds of evidence), or blatantly lying about “anti-Semitic mobs” or Frank’s Jewish background being a major factor in the case. More people need to write the truth of the matter so that people are not misled and so that an injustice is not committed against Mary Phagan and the Phagan family.

The ADL has been promoting a lie—for over a century!

“HANG THE JEW, HANG THE JEW” is what the ADL says was chanted during the month-long trial, but its own expert Steve Oney says it NEVER OCCURRED! According to Oney, at the time of Mary Phagan’s murder, “Atlanta was a philo-Semitic city. Its assimilated, German-Jewish elite were part of the financial and legal power structure…” The governor in Frank’s 1915 commutation, John Slaton, also addressed the false claim of an “anti-Semitic mob” surrounding the courtroom pressing to lynch Frank: “No such attack was made and…none was contemplated.” Governor Slaton also countered the false claim of an “anti-Semitic” atmosphere by reminding Frank supporters that Jews were highly respected and appreciated in Georgia because they had been “conspicuous” contributors to the history and development of the state. Mr. Oney refutes the claim that there were anti-Semitic mobs shouting “Hang the Jew!” He told the Jewish Journal: “[I]t didn’t happen. It was something that someone wrote a couple [of] years after the crime, and then it got stuck into subsequent recountings of the story…. Jews were accepted in the city, and the record does not substantiate subsequent reports that the crowd outside the courtroom shouted at the jurors: ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you.’” It has been claimed that “anti-Semitism” and the “hatred of Jews” motivated Frank’s conviction and lynching. And yet, incredibly, there was no anti- Semitism expressed by police, detectives, prosecutors, jurors, judge, or reporters! There was no “prejudicial trial” or “mob rule” or anti-Jewish bigotry of any kind. Most people are unaware that the prosecutor first brought his case against Leo Frank before a 23-member grand jury that included five prominent members of the Jewish community (including at least two from Frank’s own synagogue), and all the grand jurors signed the bill of indictment against Leo Frank. The Leo Frank trial judge Leonard S. Roan was once a law partner of one of Frank’s defense attorneys and, according to a confidential ADL memo: “In general, the rulings of the trial Judge had been favorable to the defense.” Frank’s defense attorney even declared after the trial: “We do not make the least criticism of Judge Roan. [He] is one of the best men in Georgia and is an able and conscientious judge.” The false claims of anti-Semitism are simply unfounded and untrue.

Roy Barnes’s False Statements

“I’m convinced through the reading not only did he not get a fair trial, he was not guilty. The case just simply was wrong....There’s no question he didn’t get a fair shot.... There is substantial reasonable doubt as to whether Frank was guilty.” The FACTS: Roy Barnes recently told some law students that “If you get interested in this case,” they should read the book by author Steve Oney. But when asked if the trial jury “ignored the facts in the case,” Oney responded, “No, I think there was a reasonable case against Leo Frank.” Even Gov. John Slaton, who (under political pressure) commuted Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment in 1915, wrote: “The Supreme Court…determined as a matter of law, and correctly in my judgment, that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the [guilty] verdict. Leo Frank: White Privilege White Privilege is the unearned, mostly unacknowledged social advantage white people have over other racial groups simply because they are white. In 1913, Leo Frank was convicted for the murder of Little Mary Phagan based on the direct evidence found at the scene of the crime as well as circumstantial evidence and because he was a “sexual deviant/degenerate” with a long history of sexually molesting his female employees. Leo Frank and his defense team used “White Privilege” as a tool to play on white fears about stereotypes of “Negroes” being savage beasts and pathological liars. Scholars of the case have admitted that Leo Frank and his supporters actually relied on racism to defend himself against charges they knew were true. Jewish historian Theodore Rosengarten bluntly asserted that “Readers who wish to find a progressive Jewish social ethic at work in the Frank camp will be sorely disappointed. Frank’s lawyers played the race card for all it was worth.” He was not the only one:

Documented Sources: White Privilege and Leo Frank’s Racism

Harry Golden, A Little Girl is Dead (1965), p. xv:

“Until the mid-1960s, let alone in 1913, no white man in any of the old Confederate States had ever been convicted of a capital offense on the testimony of a Negro.”

Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey, The Silent and the Damned (1988), p. 109: “Leo Frank was convicted on the strength of a black man’s testimony—truly a rare event in the South in the early years of the twentieth century. Certainly the words of a black man were almost never taken over those of a white man. And Frank was convicted by an all-white jury.”

Jeffrey Melnick, Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South (2000), pages xi, 8, 37, 43, 61, 100, 111: “…Frank and his supporters used racist language to demean Conley and took refuge in what they understood to be the privilege of Jewish whiteness.” “This represented the first capital case in postbellum southern history in which a ‘white’ defendant was condemned by the testimony of an African American.” “…Jews like Leo Frank were much more likely to take up whiteness as a self-concept and mode of behavior than their northern counterparts…” “Frank considered himself to be white and enjoyed the privileges thereof, including African American domestic help and control over a large number of poor southerners—white and African American.” “Another of Frank’s lawyers referred to Conley as a ‘dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger.’”

“…Frank’s people tried to establish Frank’s ‘whiteness’ (and I mean that doubly here to signify his racial standing and his innocence) by demonstrating his distance from even the most trivial constituent of American culture that might be traceable to African Americans.” “Frank’s lawyers employed racial epithets at every turn, and... capitalized on much the same sort of racist thinking that helped to turn public opinion against their man.”

Charles and Louise Samuels, Night Fell on Georgia (1956), pages 158, 159: “Again it should be noted that the men defending Frank, while protesting the [nonexistant] prejudice against Jews, saw no reason why anyone should object to their own often expressed prejudice against Negroes.” “‘Who is Conley?’ [the defense lawyer Luther Rosser] demanded. ‘Who was Conley, as he used to be and as you have seen him? He was a dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger.’”

Steve Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise (2003), page 148: “For one thing, Leo Frank had already made the grounds of the impending legal battle clear. ‘No white man killed Mary Phagan,’ the factory superintendent had reportedly told a prison attaché upon hearing of Conley’s affidavits. ‘It’s a negro crime, through and through.’ The Negro to whom Frank was referring was, of course, poor Jim, and as [attorney William] Smith later phrased it, the accused was going to use every bit of his ‘ great influence and unlimited financial means’ to bring the point home to a jury.”

Nation of Islam, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 (2016), pages 125, 362: “Frank’s attorneys seized upon the state’s extraordinary blurring of the color line to make their stand. They looked beyond the murder of Mary Phagan and took the position that Frank’s conviction would in fact undermine sacred Southern racial traditions and set in motion a racial upheaval far more significant than Frank’s actual guilt or innocence.” “Today’s believers in the innocence of Leo Frank have continued the tactic pursued in the courtroom by his lawyers, who assigned all manner of dishonesty to James Conley: Frank’s attorneys variously called Conley ‘a dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger’; ‘a dirty negro crook’; a ‘beastly, drunken, filthy, lying nigger’; a ‘ filthy, criminal, lying negro’—being careful to pair untruthfulness and uncleanliness with the Black race.”

R. Barri Flowers, Murder Chronicles (2014): “Racism and stereotyping had been part of the defense strategy throughout the trial, as Frank’s attorneys portrayed Conley as being ‘especially disposed to lying and murdering because of his race.’”

Nancy MacLean, “The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered” (1991), characterizes Frank’s defense as: “a virulent racist offense against ... Jim Conley.” “Frank’s attorneys based their case on the most vicious antiblack stereotypes of the day and on outspoken appeals to white solidarity...”

Dr. Stuart Rockoff, director of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience: “Thus, their defense of Frank was largely an asserting of his and, by extension, their own whiteness.”

Phagan Family Position Paper, June 2019, pages 7-9: “Leo Frank’s lawyers argued to the jury of twelve white men that murder, rape, and robbery were ‘ negro crimes’ and thus Frank, a white man, could not have committed the murder of Mary Phagan. One defense attorney said that ‘the murder was the unreasoning crime of a negro,’ that ‘It isn’t a white man’s crime.’”

Albert S. Lindemann, The Jew Accused, (1991), page 245: “Frank resorted to racial stereotypes in his own defense. He insisted that Mary must have been killed by some sort of violent, primitive brute—in short, a Black, not a Jew. Frank’s lawyers were energetic in insisting that murder of this sort was not a Jewish crime, and they did not hesitate to exploit anti-Black bigotry. They referred to Jim Conley…as a ‘dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger’...” “There was something...hypocritical about such men, denouncing the bigoty against Jews that they asserted was responsible for the charges against Frank, yet resorting to a far more explicit and vicious bigotry against Blacks in his defense. Significantly, the prosecution avoided racial stereotyping, at least of this blatant sort.” Frank’s own racist thinking is reflected in an Atlanta Constitution front-page headline on May 31, 1913: “Mary Phagan’s Murder Was Work of a Negro Declares Leo M. Frank.” The newspaper quoted Frank: “Here is a negro, not alone with the shiftless and lying habits of an element of his race, that is common to the South….No white man killed Mary Phagan. It’s a negro’s crime, through and through. No man with common sense would even suspect I did it.”

Leo Frank’s supporters then and now have played the White Privilege race card and falsely represent an African American man as the “real killer.” For 107 years James “Jim” Conley has been scapegoated in nearly all the literature on the case. He was a sweeper in the factory on the day of the murder who was ordered by his boss Leo Frank to help move the dead body of Mary Phagan. When Conley confessed to his accessory-after-the-fact role, Frank and his supporters tried (and continue to this day) to smear Conley as a devious criminal who got away with murder, but Conley’s very detailed confession—corroborated by the physical evidence at the crime scene—was so convincing that it became central to the prosecution’s case. (At trial, Leo Frank refused to be cross-examined by prosecutors, but James Conley withstood nearly 16 hours of cross-examination—under oath.) Before he accused James Conley of the crime, Leo Frank worked overtime to pin the murder on the African American night watchman who found Mary Phagan’s body, Newt Lee. Frank hired private detectives who planted a blood-soaked shirt in the innocent black man’s home, and then Frank told the police where they could find that damning “evidence.” When the newspapers reported that a bloody shirt was found at Lee’s home, it almost caused an innocent man to be lynched. Luckily for Lee, Frank’s private detectives did such a sloppy job at planting the shirt that the police were not fooled at all, and it only increased their suspicion of Leo Frank. That is the point when the people of Atlanta came to believe—and rightly so—that Leo Frank was the murderer of Little Mary Phagan. Leo Frank: “Sexual Pervert” According to Dr. Jeffrey Melnick, “The perversion charge merits special attention because it formed the emotional core of the prosecution’s case against Frank, and also became the most important constituent in public feeling against him.” So, according to the Nation of Islam, “The Frank team strategy was to stress the act of rape in Mary Phagan’s murder, and in so doing the Frank team felt they could convince a predisposed white America that only a Black man could be responsible for the brutal killing of this white girl.” Dr. Stuart Rockoff concurs: “Frank’s trial lawyers also relied upon the stereotype of the black rapist to argue that Conley was the one most likely guilty of the crime.” By the time of his lynching in 1915 many people—including his Jewish supporters—not only were repelled by Leo Frank’s abrasive personality but also believed he was in fact the murderer of Mary Phagan. Chicago icon Albert Lasker, a Jewish philanthropist and the “father of modern advertising,” paid millions (in today’s money) for Frank’s defense, but he privately admitted that he was not even convinced that Leo Frank was innocent. It was Lasker who financed all of Frank’s post-conviction appeals and orchestrated his international public-relations campaign that involved media outlets across the nation, including the New York Times. Lasker recalled the meeting in Frank’s jail cell: “It was very hard for us to be fair to him, he impressed us as a sexual pervert. Now, he may not have been—or rather homosexual or something like that…” According to Lasker’s biographer, the men with him during that encounter took “a violent dislike to him.” Lasker “hated him,” and said, “I hope he [Leo Frank] gets out…and when he gets out I hope he slips on a banana peel and breaks his neck.” The fact is Leo Frank was a sexual predator—the Harvey Weinstein/Jeffrey Epstein of his era. He, like those convicted pedophiles, used the factory he managed and the position he held to pressure little girls into sexual situations where he ruthlessly took advantage of them. And that is exactly what he did on Saturday, April 26, 1913, to thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, who came to her place of employment to collect her pay of $1.20 from her boss Leo Frank.. And just like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, B’nai B’rith president Leo Frank used the opportunity to lure Little Mary Phagan to a back area of the factory and attempted to sexually assault her. Evidence shows that Mary resisted Frank with all of her might and in the struggle he struck her and then strangled her to death. At his murder trial twenty of Leo Frank’s own female employees bravely took the witness stand and testified to Frank’s history of sexual deviance and harassment. They testified that he “got too familiar,” “put his hands on” them, tried to corner them, and proposed sexual acts to them for money. Fourteen-year-old Nellie Pettis recounted how Frank had propositioned her for sex and 16-year-old Nellie Wood testified that Frank pushed himself against her and touched her breast. Several male employees also described how they had witnessed Frank rubbing himself against young female workers. The testimony was so explicit that the judge had to clear the courtroom of women. These young girls were the real pioneers of today’s #MeToo Movement. Leo Frank’s lawyers did not even attempt to cross-examine any of the girls who testified at his trial. Instead, the defense attorneys told the jury that Frank’s behavior was: “a sign that we are getting more broad-minded... Deliver me from one of these prudish fellows that never looks at a girl and never puts his hands on her....He’s the kind that I wouldn’t trust behind the door.” Will the new D.A. finally bring INTEGRITY to the Conviction Itegrity Unit, and face the facts of Leo M. Frank’s racism and sexual deviance? Or will she let the lies and the liars have their way and allow them to pin a brutal murder of our family member wrongly on an African American man? We’ll see.

The Phagan family has no objection to anyone expressing their opinions about the Frank case, but we do insist that organizations and personal campaigns not distort the truth and facts to use this case for their own political purposes. For over 100 years, each passing decade brought with it “new historical evidence” falsely claiming to exonerate Leo Frank. The Phagan family has stated since 1982 that if there were clear-cut evidence to clear Frank of this heinous crime, we would come forward and ask for exoneration. However, such historical evidence has never come to light. Rather, there are considerable data, extensive documentation, revealing archival material, and legal, court, and government records that only support and even strengthen the guilty verdict.

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Steve Oney says “NO NEW EVIDENCE” to exonerate Leo Frank for the murder of Little Mary Phagan

On February 17, 2020, Steve Oney spoke in Savannah on the Leo Frank case. Mr. Oney is considered by many Frank supporters to be an expert, having written a book on the subject. The Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard is being pressured by a group of non-experts to exonerate B’nai B’rith leader Leo M. Frank, who was convicted 107 years ago of the rape and murder of my great aunt Little Mary Phagan at his pencil factory when she was just 13. Those non-experts in the Jewish community have apparently hired the former governor Roy Barnes to be the frontman for them even though he knows less about the case than they do! He recently told some law students that “If you get interested in this case…the book you should read is The Dead Shall Rise by Steve Oney.” But then Barnes went on—IN THAT VERY SAME LECTURE—to make false claims about the case that Mr. Oney has pointed out were simply untrue and never happened. Roy Barnes—in 2019—told this same group of law students this outright lie about the Leo Frank murder trial: “And there were just mobs of people. And as the jury would go [to] the courthouse every day, the mob would scream, ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you!’”

This is very significant because this particular claim is central to the belief that anti-Semitism infected Frank’s murder trial and tainted the guilty verdict. But Steve Oney is very, very clear about it: “[I]t didn’t happen. It was something that someone wrote a couple years after the crime, and then it got stuck into subsequent recountings of the story….Jews were accepted in the city, and the record does not substantiate subsequent reports that the crowd outside the courtroom shouted at the jurors: ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you.’” The Breman Museum stopped making the false claim of anti-Semitic chants. Only Roy Barnes and his ADL cohorts continue that propaganda. In fact, they continue even though Leo Frank—the man they are trying to exonerate—was unequivocal: “Anti-Semitism is absolutely not the reason for this libel that has been framed against me. It isn’t the source nor the result of this sad story.”

Leo Frank was being interviewed in jail by the legendary Jewish journalist-publisher Abraham Cahan (founder of Ferverts, the Jewish Daily Forward), who commented that Frank was speaking “in a tone of someone deeply convinced.” Frank’s wife Lucille, wrote Cahan, “supported her husband’s claim.” Why has the Barnes crew ignored the words of Frank himself? The false claims of Roy Barnes and his cohorts are bad enough, but the fact that they are trying to use District Attorney Paul Howard to rig the legal process through these deceptive means is really troubling. It remains to be seen whether D.A. Paul Howard will fall for it in spite of the overwhelming evidence of Leo Frank’s guilt in the murder of my great aunt, Mary Phagan.

I must say, Steve Oney is certainly not in the clear here. He has his own axe to grind, because in his recent Savannah lecture, which I attended, he spread his own set of falsehoods and deceptions.

Here are just a few: Mr. Oney said that the Frank case was motivated by prejudice. But when asked if the trial jury “ignored the facts in the case,” Oney responded, “No, I think there was a reasonable case against Leo Frank.” Well, which is it, Mr. Oney? To “prove” his claim of “prejudice” in the Frank trial Oney now says that the firebrand Tom Watson used his newspaper to attack Frank "During the Trial"! But in contradiction to that statement, Oney in his own 2003 book (page 383) actually explains—truthfully—that Watson did not say or write ANYTHING about the trial until SEVEN MONTHS AFTER THE GUILTY VERDICT! So, Watson could not have had any effect on the trial at all. Why would Steve Oney now tell such a glaring untruth? Who knows? But there still remains NO PROOF AT ALL that “prejudice” or “anti-Semitism” affected the trial. Certainly, Steve Oney can provide no proof.

The Leo Frank case has historical significance for the African-American community because it was the first time in history that a black man’s testimony helped convict a white man. But Oney and Barnes hide just how racist Leo Frank’s defense team of leading attorneys were against this man, James Conley. In open court, they called him the n-word numerous times! They even tried to pin the murder on him!

District Attorney Paul Howard would be shocked at the anti-black hate speech and the criminal acts Frank’s supporters engaged in! And why won’t Oney point out how 20 young girls and women who worked for Frank testified under oath of Frank’s sexual harassment? My great aunt resisted Frank’s lecherous intentions—and she died defending her honor!

NO NEW EVIDENCE!

After all his big and small deceptions revealed in his February 2020 lecture in Savannah, Oney finally got down to the reality that after 107 years of failed attempts to exonerate Frank, D.A. Paul Howard’s new Conviction Integrity Unit will have NO NEW EVIDENCE to make a judgment. Oney told the audience, “I don’t see any new evidence out there” that might add anything new to the case. This is a bombshell because D.A. Paul Howard has said, “The unit will investigate claims of actual innocence to determine whether new evidence or facts may prove a convicted defendant didn’t commit the offense.” D.A. Howard went further: “The CIU will review cases in which there is new factual, physical, or forensic evidence. The unit will also review cases in which there is relevant evidence that went untested at the time of trial or some other new evidence that a person was convicted wrongfully.”

Aimee Maxwell, the director of the D.A.’s Conviction Integrity Unit, was interviewed on WABE’s Closer Look program and was asked, “What is the criteria” for evaluating a case? Ms. Maxwell answered: “Well, for actual innocence, what we’re really looking at is some new evidence—evidence that a court hasn’t looked at...”

So, now that Steve Oney has publicly admitted what real scholars of the case have known for decades, WHAT IS THE EVIDENTIARY BASIS FOR THE ADL’S EFFORTS TO EXONERATE LEO FRANK? Why won’t they explain their position? In the end, Oney has told his own set of untruths in order to promote his own book and to continue to receive the benefits he receives from telling interviewers and audiences what they want to hear—that Frank was “wrongly convicted for a crime he did not commit.”

The fact is, every bit of evidence only supports the verdict of guilty. D.A. Paul Howard has been made aware of the serious perjuries that have been told to exonerate Leo Frank and to posthumously convict the African American man who Leo Frank set up to take the fall. This is not a theory—this is a documented fact. Will Mr. Howard and his new Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) continue the deception? History shows that the integrity of Frank’s conviction is secure. The integrity of the District Attorney and his office is what really is at stake.

The Hypocrisy of the Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) & the Leo Frank Case

The Inaugural Conviction Integrity Unit Reception was held at the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta on Wednesday, January 8, 2019. The Keynote Speaker was Ambassador Andrew Young, Jr. What is the Conviction Integrity Unit? According to its own description, “The Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) endeavors to review past conviction for credible claims of actual innocence, wrongful conviction, and, where feasible, sentencing inequities. This process is afforded to applicants regardless of whether are pro se or represented by an attorney. The CIU is committed to ensuring all submissions receive a thorough and equitable review.” Cases the CIU will review: 1. Claims of actual innocence 2. Claims of Constitutional Violations 3. In the interest of Justice 4. Sentence Modification 5. Cases of Historical Significance That sounds good, but this CIU was NOT the brainchild of the Fulton County D.A. According to former governor Roy Barnes, a group of pro-Frank crusaders (including himself) brought the Leo Frank case to the D.A. to ask him to exonerate this murderer (and to convict a black man for Frank’s 107-year-old crime!) The Milledgeville Journal reported that “When Howard asked Barnes what he had in mind, Barnes said he wanted to see if he could get the judgment against Frank set aside. Howard said he was open to the idea, but believed if he assembled a team to consider it, the team should look at more than one case.” So it was already determined that the Leo Frank Case would be reviewed before the announcement of the CIU! The Leo Frank Case did not follow the CIU’s own protocol. Why not?

Why Leo Frank?

On May 7, 2019, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard stated, “The Frank Case helped inspire the creation of the new unit” and that “Former Governor Roy Barnes, who will serve as a consultant to the Conviction Integrity Unit, had lobbied the district attorney to re-examine Frank’s case.” Those statements alone convince me that the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) has already re-adjudicated Leo Frank. Roy Barnes said he is convinced that this will happen. “There is no doubt in my mind, and he’ll prove it at the appropriate time, that Leo Frank was not guilty.”

Roy Barnes should recuse himself from this case, as should members of the Conviction Integrity Unit who know Barnes or any others who have categorically stated that Leo Frank is not guilty. For over a century, propaganda has masqueraded as “new evidence”: there have been plays, articles, books, videos, movies, and dramas claiming death-bed confessions, bite marks and teeth x-rays (no evidence), and antisemitic pogroms (no evidence). So, how is it that Leo Frank—a white rich man convicted of murder and having exhausted every possible court appeals process, and having been previously rejected as a pardon candidate—now gets a CIU Review?! On what basis, Mr. Howard? What about the 589 other Georgia lynchings? The report on June 14, 2017 states that Fulton County was the scene of far more lynchings, 35, than any other county in the state! Where is the JUSTICE for them? Lynchings: By State and Race, 1882-1968.

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Former governor Roy Barnes Claims Leo Frank Did Not Kill Mary Phagan. He Insists that the Century-Old conviction was “wrong”.

What Roy Barnes doesn’t want you to know:

107 years ago, Leo Frank, the general superintendent of an Atlanta pencil factory, targeted my great aunt, 13-year-old Mary Phagan—just like he had targeted 20 other young girls who worked there at the National Pencil Company. He attempted to rape her and she resisted. He beat her and then strangled her. Now former governor Roy Barnes and the Anti-Defamation League want to exonerate Leo Frank and claim that an African-American man was the “real killer.” We must assure every reader that no one on earth wanted Mary’s murderer to be convicted and sentenced for this horrific crime more than the Phagan Family. Over many years we have devoted many hours of research and published a book on this historic case.

Without question or doubt, Leo Frank murdered Little Mary Phagan. In recent interviews and lectures Roy Barnes, who is an attorney, has exhibited a truly embarrassing lack of knowledge about critical details of the case. He has misstated the evidence and invented “evidence” that does not exist. He tells his audiences to read books that actually disprove his own point of view. Barnes seems unaware that most of the things he believes about the case are pure propaganda direct from Frank’s public relations team. Fulton County District Attorney, Paul Howard, has taken on Roy Barnes as a “consultant” in the newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU). In fact, Barnes says he is the one who brought the Leo Frank case to D.A. Paul Howard, who then set up the CIU for the express purpose of exonerating the rapist-murderer of my great aunt, Mary Anne Phagan (1899-1913)! For over a century, propaganda has masqueraded as “new evidence”: there have been plays, articles, books, videos, movies, podcasts, dramas, claims of death-bed confessions, mysterious bite marks and teeth x-rays (no evidence), and claims of anti-Semitic pogroms (no evidence). Instead of actually examining the trial record, Roy Barnes cobbles together all of the propaganda and pushed it on Paul Howard, the media, and the public as “truth.”

Let’s look at just some of Barnes’s most glaring “misstatements” and then present what the actual evidence shows. If, after this clear correction, Barnes and his associates (and the media) continue pushing their lies and falsehoods, then we can safely attribute their actions to willful and open deception. Here are just a few of Roy Barnes’s many public False Statements and Factual ERRORS:

Roy Barnes’s False Statements

The Factual CORRECTIONS

“I’m convinced through the reading not only did he not get a fair trial, he was not guilty. The case just simply was wrong.” “‘There’s no question he didn’t get a fair shot,’ Barnes said....There is substantial reasonable doubt as to whether Frank was guilty.’”
Roy Barnes recently told some law students that “If you get interested in this case,” they should read the book by author Steve Oney. But when asked if the trial jury “ignored the facts in the case,” Oney responded, “No, I think there was a reasonable case against Leo Frank.” Even Gov. John Slaton, who (under political pressure) commuted Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment, wrote: “The Supreme Court…determined as a matter of law, and correctly in my judgment, that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the [guilty] verdict.”

“And there were just mobs of people. And as the jury would go [to] the courthouse every day, the mob would scream, ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you!’”

Here, again, Steve Oney is clear: “[I]t didn’t happen. It was something that someone wrote a couple of years after the crime, and then it got stuck into subsequent recountings of the story….Jews were accepted in the city, and the record does not substantiate subsequent reports that the crowd outside the courtroom shouted at the jurors: ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you.’”

In the book Night Fell on Georgia, by Charles and Louise Samuels, they write: “Leo Frank was a Jew, but at the time there was little, if any anti-Semitism in Atlanta.” The Breman Museum stopped making the false claim of anti-Semitic chants. Only Roy Barnes and his ADL cohorts continue that propaganda.

“Oliver Wendall Holmes and Charles Evans Hughes (Supreme Court justices) wrote [about how there was a mob outside where somebody would sit in the window] and holler what the testimony was. And there would be a roar of approval or boo of disapproval.”

After losing 12 successive court appeals Frank’s lawyers went to the US Supreme Court, which REFUSED his 13th appeal. In a statement, Holmes and Hughes simply affirmed that generally trials should not be carried out under mob rule. The Justices never actually reviewed the Frank trial. Indeed, as Governor Slaton pointed out, the case record shows there were no anti-Semitic mobs in or outside the courtroom. The murder trial, conducted by Judge Leonard S. Roan, was in fact orderly, and the Supreme Court found in the trial “no error of law.”

“They had one of the main witnesses on his deathbed to recant, this was back in the 70s.”

Roy Barnes simply made that up. Perhaps he is referring to Alonzo Mann, whom I actually interviewed in my home on July 19, 1983, for four hours. Mr. Mann was a very nice elderly gentleman but he has told so many different stories to detectives, to the court, to reporters, to Georgia officials—even things that conflict with Leo Frank’s story—that even Barnes’s expert author Steve Oney has said: “You can’t reverse an 80-year-old conviction based on the wavering memory of an 85-year-old man.”

Pardon and Parole Board issued a posthumous pardon…based on a procedural process that he was not afforded a fair trial based on the flimsiest of evidence.” An untrue by the Board.

After the first attempt to pardon Frank was denied in 1982, the Georgia Pardon and Parole Board met in secret with Jewish organizations to devise a way to “Pardon” Leo Frank. And to this day those negotiations and documents are considered to be a “Confidential State Secret”! Even so, nowhere in this secret 1986 “pardon” (which, very strangely, is not even on official government letterhead) does it state that Leo Frank did not have a fair trial. In fact, the pardon does not acknowledge any crime for which a pardon is necessary. Nor does it absolve Leo Frank of his crime.

“Anti-Semitism is absolutely not the reason for this libel that has been framed against me. It isn’t the source nor the result of this sad story.” —Leo Frank

“Tom Watson had a newspaper called the Jeffersonian weekly and he printed headlines in red and it was scandalous ... reporting in the trial that occurred every day.” - Roy Barnes

The fact is Tom Watson did not write ANYTHING at all about the trial until 1914, seven months after Leo Frank had been convicted! So Watson had absolutely NO EFFECT on the trial or the verdict. In fact, Frank himself tried to hire Watson to be his attorney. Watson declined.

“Judge Roan, who had presided over the trial and wrote Gov. Slaton a letter saying ‘if I had the power…I would have probably ran in a new trial….’ [H]e didn’t think he had the power at the time—he was wrong—and Governor Slaton tells him yeah you could have done that.” This is simply made up by Barnes. There is no such letter; there is no proof of
this Letter having ever existed. Judge Roan presided over the entire trial. He had “the power” to call a mistrial, to annul the verdict, to impose a life sentence, instead of capital punishment. He CHOSE to sentence Leo Frank to death by hanging! Judge Roan rejected the Leo Frank defense team's petition for a new trial on 107 grounds.

Roy Barnes and his associates are hell-bent on exonerating Leo Frank and convicting a long-deceased African-American man named James Conley, who is not able to defend himself.

Conley is THE SECOND African American that Frank tried to pin his crime on! Though he poses as an expert in the case, Roy Barnes seems totally unaware that:

• 5 members of the Grand Jury that indicted Leo Frank were Jewish;

• the Grand Jury indicted Leo Frank WITHOUT the testimony of James Conley;

• all three Atlanta daily newspapers had Jewish editors throughout the Leo Frank case.

Even though Roy Barnes has little knowledge of the facts of this case, the State of Georgia has actually employed him as a consultant in the Mary Phagan murder case! This is a travesty. He says, “The ghost of Leo Frank walks among us today.” Well, D.A. Paul Howard, What about justice for a little girl named Mary Phagan?!

Pennsylvania College Rejects Biased Leo Frank Play

Students at Point Park University in Pittsburgh have rejected the Alfred Uhry play PARADE and the school has CANCELLED its performance. For years Uhry, the writer of the movie Driving Miss Daisy, has promoted PARADE as the “true story” of the Leo Frank case. It is not. Its sole purpose is to falsely place blame for the murder of Little Mary Phagan on an African-American man named James Conley. According to the Jewish Chronicle, “some Point Park students...took issue with the show’s conclusion that implies that Jim Conley, a black janitor and Frank’s main accuser, was the actual perpetrator of the crimes...” Students at Point Park determined that they would not be a part of racist propaganda. Will the Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit do the same?

Keys To Leo Frank’s Prison Cell Discovered?

The Breman Museum claims that they have found the keys to Leo Frank’s cell at Milledgeville Prison in Georgia. But the FACT is Leo Frank lived such a charmed life in prison that the keys may have metaphorically belonged to him! Most inmates at the Milledgeville Prison Farm, slept in barracks, not cells. No other inmate in the history of MILLEDGEVILLE PRISON had an experience like Leo Frank. His letters home during the first few weeks, wrote author Leonard Dinnerstein, “resemble those from a child vacationing at a summer camp.” In one letter Frank writes: “We get the finest Elberta peaches and watermelons here, grown on the Farm. The apples are stewed for me. I also sleep well.”

He received gifts of an Ingersoll watch, a shaving mirror, a box of cigars, chocolate cake, plenty of books, a footlocker that “overflowed” with tins of crackers and sardines, packs of cigarettes and gum.

A friend brought him toilet and shaving articles including “bath and face towels.” He received a shipment of phonograph records, which he played on the warden’s own Victrola machine. He was exasperated one day, complaining, “You know I have so much mail and I like to keep things clear and orderly.” Frank sat at “a big roller top desk” where he spent his days preparing his correspondence. He was even able to offer postal services to his wife back in Atlanta: “Let me know if you need some stamps, and I can send you some, so you can write to me.” He received daily deliveries of newspapers, which he read each morning in his robe. He even carried on a card game by mail with the bridge writer for the New York Times! He exercised with a set of dumbbells in an area by his cell. There is much more on Frank’s prison conditions in the recently published book by the Nation of Islam (now banned on Amazon, it was banned during Black History Month, February 2019).

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The Phagan Family Asks D.A. Paul Howard Why The Secrecy?

In 2019, under intense pressure from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard established the “Conviction Integrity Unit,” which is intended to reverse the 1913 conviction of the murderer and rapist Leo Frank. All evidence proves that Frank murdered our beloved family member, 13-year-old Mary Phagan, but many outright lies have been told about the case that MUST BE CORRECTED! Go to LITTLEMARYPHAGAN.COM for more TRUTH about the murder of Little Mary Phagan.

Since the Conviction Integrity Unit has been established to review the Leo Frank Case, BOOKS have been BANNED, YouTube Videos have been removed and Georgia and Supreme Court records and Original newspaper links are NO LONGER AVAILABLE! Why? To “silence the opposing view.” What is the truth of the Leo Frank Case? Truth has become inappropriate or offensive or objectionable and is deemed “hate speech” to impose censorship. FACTS ARE NOT HATEFUL!!! An extraordinary set of events has occurred that raises serious questions about those people and groups behind the newly formed Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit. On April 26, 2019, District Attorney Paul Howard announced that he would lead yet another official inquiry into the 1913 conviction of the murderer of my great aunt Mary Phagan, her employer Leo Frank. Let me be very clear on behalf of the Phagan family: We have studied this case and all of the available evidence, trial documents and news reports and there is absolutely no doubt that Leo Frank was the murderer of Little Mary Phagan. D.A. Howard was approached by a group of supporters of Leo Frank who have absolutely NO INTEREST injustice and have for years ducked and dodged the actual evidence that proves Leo Frank’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. Instead, they have provided D.A. Howard with false and deceptive data and outright lies in order to force him to do their bidding. This century-old murder case was rife with fraud and deception from the beginning. A May 4, 1913 Atlanta Constitution article titled “Impostors Busy in Sleuth Roles in Phagan Case” asks: “What interests are promoting the planting of evidence in the Mary Phagan mystery?...[W]e are convinced that there are mysterious forces antagonizing our investigation.” D.A. Howard should know (but his “consultants” won’t tell him) that the planted evidence was specifically targeting the African-American night watchman at the factory, Newt Lee. Had the police not discovered the fraud Lee would very likely have been lynched! Later, Leo Frank’s most zealous supporter Albert Lasker—the man who financed Frank’s 13 post-conviction appeals—admitted that he would stoop to the lowest criminal level to secure Leo Frank’s acquittal, by putting in “as much perjured stuff” as his agents could create. And it appears that this kind of dishonest activity has not stopped. These facts—and many, many more like them—used to be available on the internet until very recently. Before he takes on the Frank case, D.A. Howard might do well to ask why the original documents in the case have all of a sudden been removed from the internet. Indeed, the books, videos, articles, and court documents that provide a balanced view of the case have been systematically removed SINCE THE CONVICTION INTEGRITY UNIT WAS ANNOUNCED!

No Longer Available

• Original articles from the three major dailies covering the day-by-day progress of the case (removed from archive.org)

• Videos from YouTube that challenge the false idea that

Go To LittleMaryPhagan.com. We Won’t Censor the Truth!

• Official case documents like the Brief of Evidence, the appeals filings, and the published trial records have been scrubbed from the internet.

• Books that prove Leo Frank’s guilt and provide a serious case analysis have been banned and censored. My 1987 book titled The Murder of Little Mary Phagan has been removed from some websites where it was previously available for years. The Nation of Islam’s recent book Leo Frank: The Lynching of a Guilty Man has been mysteriously banned from sale on Amazon.com.

• Google searches EXCLUDE articles and documents that show evidence of Frank’s guilt.

• When we made an Open Records Request to the University of Georgia, they first said 70 records match the request. When we paid to have them mailed to us, all of a sudden all
70 records vanished with no explanation!

• When the Phagan Family tried to obtain Leo Frank case records from the Georgia Pardon and Paroles Board they refused, claiming they are designated as a “CONFIDENTIAL STATE SECRET”!

Why The SECRECY!?

Are the Leo Frank crusaders, such as Mr. Roy Barnes, Mr. Steven Lebow, Mr. Van Pearlberg, Mr. Dale Schwartz and the ADL, trying to conceal the official records from D.A. Paul Howard and the CIU? Why has all this CENSORSHIP occurred right after the CIU was formed? How can they have “integrity,” when they are working so hard to suppress the official case record and evidence from the public and from the media? Who is removing these important documents from the internet and why? How can records from a 100-year-old legal case be called a “state secret”? What are they hiding? And most importantly, What are District Attorney Paul Howard and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office going to do about it? D.A. Paul Howard was quoted in the Atlanta Journal Constitution saying, “One of the things we’re going to try to do is find official records…The criminal justice system has an obligation to get at the truth…” Fortunately for him and the CIU, the public and the media will still be able to access those critical official documents that the Leo Frank crusaders are trying to hide. We have made them available at LittleMaryPhagan.com where we believe they will be safe from the Leo Frank censors and their internet cleansing campaign. The Phagan Family calls on District Attorney Paul Howard to STOP THE SECRECY! Investigate these obvious attacks on Free Speech and the hiding of critical case information. If the CIU is honestly seeking justice, then they should contact YouTube, Archive.org, Amazon.com, Google.com, etc., and SPECIFICALLY request that the items containing alternative views of the case be returned for public access.

Won’t it be a shock when D.A. Paul Howard discovers that the same people who brought him this case are the same ones hiding it from him?

FACTS ARE NOT HATEFUL!