--- aliases: - Richard Halverson - Richard S. Halvorsen category: Organized Crime created: 2026-04-28 relations: - fn: 2 start: 1974 type: founded with: '[[Troop 137]]' - fn: 2 role: maintenance man type: employed_by with: '[[Adelphi Academies]]' - fn: 2 reverse: true start: 1976 type: prosecuted with: '[[Harry Connick]]' summary: Former Adelphi Academies maintenance man and New Orleans volunteer probation officer who organized Boy Scout Troop 137 in 1974 with Raymond Woodall; arrested in September 1976 and convicted by May 1977. tags: - Person - ChildAbuse - NewOrleans updated: 2026-09-22 --- Richard S. Halvorsen, also reported as Halverson, had worked with [Raymond Woodall](/people/raymond-woodall/) as a maintenance man at the Adelphi Academies in [Coral Gables, Florida](/places/coral-gables-florida/), identified by Florida police as a former male prostitution front, before the two moved to [New Orleans](/places/new-orleans/). There in 1974 they organized Boy Scout [Troop 137](/organizations/troop-137/) with about 40 boys, selecting about ten for Scout trips during which sexual acts took place. Halvorsen was a volunteer probation officer, drew up applications for state and federal money to establish homes for boys, and with Richard A. Pass recruited boys through volunteer agencies for runaways, using guitars and a motorcycle as inducements. According to the Coral Gables police, he recruited six New Orleans boys for the Adelphi Academies by promising their mothers free scholarships.[^2] New Orleans police arrested Halvorsen, then 51, and Woodall in September 1976; he and twelve other men were charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated rape and aggravated crimes against nature, and nineteen men were eventually charged. A search of his home produced card files with the names and addresses of boys in other states and pornographic photographs, and his files contained the name of [Claudius Vermilye](/people/claudius-vermilye/) of [Father Bud's Boys Farm](/organizations/father-buds-boys-farm/) in Tennessee. The case was prosecuted by the office of District Attorney [Harry Connick](/people/harry-connick/). By May 1977 Halvorsen and Woodall had been convicted and were awaiting sentence; his later habeas petitions against successive wardens of the Louisiana State Penitentiary were decided in 1980 and 1982.[^2][^3] ### The Dallas Film and the Connick Allegation The writer S. Dovey wrote that the case broke when film found in a malfunctioning commercial processing machine in Dallas was traced to the assistant scoutmaster Harry O. Cramer, and Halvorsen to have been arrested with Woodall and [Robert Lang](/people/robert-lang/). Dovey also wrote that Connick was implicated by the testimony of one of his own witnesses.[^1] [^1]: Dovey, S. *Eye of the Chickenhawk.* Thehotstar, 2023. It spells the assistant scoutmaster "Harry O'Cramer"; the hearing record and Louisiana Supreme Court captions give Harry O. Cramer. Robert Lang does not appear in the 1977 hearing record. Sole source for the passages so cited. [^2]: Wright, Marilyn. *Traverse City Record-Eagle,* 1976-1977, and *Chicago Tribune,* May 1977, both reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime. *Sexual Exploitation of Children,* hearings, 95th Congress, 1st session, Serial No. 12, 1977, pp. 439-443; the Tribune piece also in U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. *Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation,* hearings, 1977. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041 [^3]: *State ex rel. Halvorsen v. Blackburn* (La. 1980) and *State ex rel. Halvorsen v. Maggio* (La. 1982), Louisiana Supreme Court, CourtListener case captions.