A Call for Late Justice for Col. Larry Franklin

Retired Air Force Intelligence Colonel Lawrence (Larry) Franklin needs your help. He and his wheelchair bound wife Patricia have lived in abject poverty in West Virginia since 2006 when Col. Franklin was railroaded by a bigoted FBI agent intent on making an example of the Irish Catholic intelligence analyst whose only crime was not being an anti-Semite.

As the Iran desk officer in the Secretary of Defense’s Office, Franklin enjoyed productive, lawful and friendly relations with the Iran desk officer at Israel’s Embassy in Washington and with senior Iran analysts at AIPAC, the largest organization involved in strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance in Washington.

Anti-Semitic officers at the FBI and the CIA, obsessed with conspiracy theories about American Jews serving in the Pentagon and Israel, tried to use Col. Franklin to frame American Jews for spying for Israel. When he refused to help them incriminate innocent Jewish Americans, they decided to make an example of him.

They aggressively investigated Col. Franklin, harassed his children and his elderly parents as well as his invalid wife.
To spare his family the economic and emotional cost of a trial, Col. Franklin agreed to plead guilty for having brought classified documents home, (so he could work late at night while taking care of his wife), and to speaking to AIPAC officials about a classified issue – Iran, even though he provided them with no classified information.

While the judge refused the Justice Department’s request to sentence Co. Franklin to 12 years in prison for his actions, on the basis of his plea, Col. Franklin lost his military and civilian pensions and benefits. After 35 years of exemplary service to our nation, he was left in utter poverty with no means to support his family.

For seven years, the Franklins lived without running water. Col. Franklin has tried to earn money from menial labor. He has parked cars, washed dishes, cleaned sewers and septic tanks, hauled furniture. Now 74, he and wife live off of scraps he fishes out of dumpsters behind restaurants. In
October 2020, Col. and Mrs. Franklin were both hospitalized for several days after the got food poisoning from a meal Col. Franklin brought home from the garbage.

Col. Franklin has asked President Donald Trump to issue a presidential pardon and to restore his military and civilian pensions.

In the meantime, we are trying to raise funds from the public to enable Col. Franklin and his wife Patricia to live with the honor and minimal comforts they so desperately deserve.

Click on the link to Newsweek magazine’s recent story on Col. Franklin for further details.

Thank you so much for your support.

Larry and son Pierce before Pierce's recent deployment to Afghanistan.


Larry's house.


Col. Larry Franklin with Ezer Weizman.


Larry and wife Pat.