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Warning: watching this video is likely to cause your blood pressure to rise.

Ed Kramer is a co-founder of Dragon*Con, the mega-popular cosplay/role-playing/get your freak on con held every Labor Day in Atlanta. For more than a decade Kramer has been successfully eluding standing trial on a bunch of charges of child molestation, claiming that he is not healthy enough to stand trial. This standoff ended in 2011, when he was found to be healthy enough to film undressed teen boys in a hotel room. Charged with a felony of “risk of injury to a child,” Kramer was incarcerated in Connecticut then extradited back to Atlanta, where as the above video shows, he’s been filing complaint after complaint, including such things as asking for a turkey sandwich instead of the roast beef given to other prisoners.

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It’s an old tactic, for Kramer, as the Atlanta Magazine feature on him reveals:

On the strength of his unusual health demands, including twice-daily oatmeal baths he claimed were needed to treat his skin condition, Kramer was released on $75,000 bond in early November 2000. But he was back in jail only a few days later, after a neighbor reported seeing a teenage boy enter his house.

Within weeks, Kramer claimed that a deputy attempting to break up a food fight between inmates had assaulted him, smashing his head into a cinder block wall. In late January 2001, Judge Turner again yielded to Kramer’s complaints by granting him the first in a long series of bond modifications. Kramer would be allowed to stay under house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor, as long as he had no further contact with children under the age of sixteen.

“Ed Kramer is an incredibly difficult inmate,” Porter says. “As soon as he puts on an orange jumpsuit, he becomes an invalid. He makes it so difficult and expensive to keep him in confinement that he just wears everyone down.”


While Dragon*Con has mostly gone on, most people have believed that Kramer was no longer involved—however, he still is one-third owner of the show and receives as much as six figures a year from it. Recently, writer Nancy A. Collins has been calling for a boycott of Dragon*Con because of this. The current show runners have explained that although they’d rather not keep Kramer on the board, it’s not too easy to get rid of him, doubtless because of his brilliant use of the legal system to dodge and obfuscate:

There has been a great deal of discussion as of late in the community regarding our continued financial connection to Edward Kramer. Please know that we are as troubled by this circumstance as anyone else, but please also know that there is no simple, legal, solution to this matter…if there were, it would have been resolved long ago.

For the record, Edward Kramer resigned from the Dragon*Con convention in the year 2000. Since that time, he has had no role in the direction or management of the convention; however, he remains a stockholder despite our desires otherwise.


Despite this, the pressure is growing to do something about Kramer’s involvement in what is definitely a good time for those who attend. Cofounder Pat Henry also owns about a third of the con, and told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Kramer has rebuffed attempts to buy him out for as much as half a million dollars. Henry doubts Kramer will ever be bought out. “He has a total unwillingness to work in good faith,” he told the AJC.

What about just dissolving Dragon*Con and starting a new show? Henry says it “is not as easily done as one might think.”

Regardless of what is or is not easy, several young men now in their late 20s are still waiting for justice from the molestation that they claim occured more than a decade ago. Collins recently received a letter from one of them:

Hey Nancy,

My name is [name redacted], I am one of the boys who was a victim of Ed, I was the younger 13 year old brother who originally told on Ed. Just wanted to tell you that I thank you for everything you have done regarding the Ed case boycotting Dragon con and I am sorry you have received hate letters and death threats. I just wanted you to know that it is appreciated and We are still ready, willing, and eager to get him into a court room and go to trial. It is good to know that some people out there aren’t backing him up.

Sincerely,
[name redacted]


Following the news report going around, at least one pro has renewed calls for a boycott:


Obviously, Kramer is a master at squirming away from any consequences for his actions. It’s equally obvious that he’s a pretty loathsome human being—ending his profiting from a weekend where people just want to have a good time might not be the easy thing, but it’s almost certainly the right thing to do.

56 COMMENTS

  1. So is there some sort of shareholder-based nonsense stopping the rest of the Dragon*Con staff from just shutting the thing down then launching, say, “Wyvern*Con” without Kramer a few months later?

  2. I’ve heard the ““is not as easily done as one might think” thing before, but I’ve never actually heard *why* it’s not easy.

    The corporation just stops putting on Dragon*Con. A brand-new corporation (that doesn’t have this guy as a stockholder) starts putting on Wyvern*Con.

    How’s that so hard?

  3. Every time I read about his, the other owners stress that there isn’t any “easy” way of ridding themselves of Kramer. The inference from this is that it’s just too hard, so they don’t want to do it.

    They wont do anything until people stop going to Dragon*Con, AND the general consensus is that the decreased attendance is because a sexual predator of young boys is profiting from the event’s proceeds. Unless both those things happen, I doubt anything will be done.

  4. The comments from Dragon*Con are sounding more and more like bullshit to me. They can walk away from the show and start a new convention. I think they want the name value of Dragon*Con. Which means we should do everything we can to make the name Dragon*Con synonymous with child molestation. Destroy the name value.

    That said, I can’t imagine how anyone – fan or professional – can attend that convention knowing Kramer profits from it.

    Get a moral clue, people.

  5. Tony,

    I don’t think it is that easy. If the same people “folded” Dragon*Con and started a brand new one, Kramer would sue them under the claim that they did that to cheat him out of money. And he’d likely win. And damages could easily be in excess of the half million they said they had offered to buy him out with.

    Frankly, given that he is a pedophile, I’m kind of surprised he wasn’t “dealt” with in prison. The ‘unsavory’ solution would be to get him back in prison and then “entice” an inmate to solve everyone’s problem. And no, I don’t feel bad about saying that because in my opinion pedophiles have no place in our world.

  6. As I understand it, the current management of D*C has tried to make the convention non-profitable, in order to ensure Kramer didn’t see anything from it, and when they did so, Kramer sued them for not representing shareholder interests.

    Similarly, they can’t simply dissolve the D*C corporation because, in Georgia, you can’t dissolve a corporation that is being sued (which Kramer is doing).

    And even if they did dissolve the convention, then all current stock holders would receive a portion of the dissolved assets equal to their share of the stock. Estimates put this at giving Kramer a massive payout, much higher than any yearly dividends.

    (And the comment in the article about Kramer receiving six figures a year from the show is a bit misleading. No one knows how much Kramer makes per year, but after not being paid by D*C for several years, he did get a lump sum awarded to him by the court for $150K. That’s the only value anyone knows he gets, but again, that was a court settlement after years of not paying him, so it’s unlikely he makes that much per year.)

  7. They don’t have to desolve anything. All they would need to do is turn Dragon*Con fully over to Kramer and just allow him to run it. Then, the other owners can then create another con, say, Wyvern*Con, like Lance sugested and schedule it at around the same time as Dragon*Con.

    I think Nancy A. Collins even sugested something like this before, but the other owners don’t seem to be really interested in doing anything unless it’s easy.

  8. The real problem here is the Georgia justice system. Get Ed Kramer convicted, and it will be MUCH easier for DC to jettison him. Either his ongoing share, or the proceeds from a buyout, will be distributed to his victims as damages. Keep him in jail pending trial and it all goes to his lawyers – what a surprise his lawyers have fought so hard to delay trial. Thirteen years and the SOB still hasn’t faced a judge and jury – that’s a failure of the state of Georgia, not of DC.

  9. Abe Sarvis: How do you propose Gwinnett County get Kramer to trial when the funds he receives from DragonCon continue to feed his legal battles–including the most recent change of attorney and the filing of the new lawsuit cited in the video report? And DragonCon has *not* been trying to make the convention unprofitable–they’ve just been trying to avoid paying him. There’s a difference. (No doubt Pat Henry is deeply rueing having appeared at Kramer’s bond hearing as a character witness.)

    As for an “easy” way for DragonCon to solve its pedophile problem, Georgia fan and comic store owner Cliff Biggers had this suggestion:

    “Here’s a very simple solution for getting rid of Ed: quit overcharging for the con to the point where it generates almost a half-million dollars in profit each year. Pay the staffers reasonable compensation for the work done, then zero-sum the membership fees so that in the end, there’s no profit for anyone, only sufficient income to cover the salaries. Do that for a few years and Kramer might decide it’s time to cash out… If the con very publicly announced that they were lowering the ticket prices, dramatically, that would be a good sign that they were taking the first tiny steps to make Ed go away. The other DragonCon owners can pay themselves hefty paychecks for work done for DragonCon; they don’t have to go without compensation, they merely have to adjust that compensation as salary rather than dividends as owner of the corporation. In years past, there were huge tax benefits for taking profits as dividends–mainly, there were no social security taxes on those dividends. But those benefits have been greatly reduced under recent tax laws, so they negatives of converting to a salary model have been mitigated. Since Ed can’t in any way work for DragonCon, and they’re not required to hire him, his income from the con would be zero–so the only way he’d get any money would be to sell his share of the convention.”

    In other words: Start running your business like what it is–a FOR PROFIT corporation, instead of a NON-PROFIT organization.

  10. “Why can’t they just get rid of Kramer, or dissolve Dragoncon and start another con? No one has given me a good answer.” Ok, here it is – because that would be illegal. In our system of jurisprudence, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Kramer has not yet been convicted of anything, so to dissolve that corporation and simply restart it for the sole purpose of removing Kramer from it, without his consent, would be fraud, and would open everyone else up to legal consequences. He would have good standing to sue all of them at the very least, and its obvious he would do it. We need the system to move faster and convict this bastard so that he can be gotten rid of and we can all move on. Don’t direct your ire at the innocent people of Dragoncon. They may be convenient targets, but they are also victims of this slimeball. Direct it at the government official who are dragging their feet on this.

  11. D*C has had more than a decade to figure out how to separate themselves from Ed Kramer. There may not be an easy solution, but they’ve had plenty of time to enact a difficult solution if they made it a priority. They obviously haven’t made it a priority and will continue to profit from the status quo for as long as creators and the fan community keep the status quo profitable.

    Like it or not, D*C is finding a pedophile. By attending D*C, you are knowingly supporting the financial well being of a pedophile. D*C will not make the difficult choice to sever ties to Ed Kramer until the community finally makes it more painful for them to continue to maintain ties to him.

  12. I don’t think this is taking it far enough. We need to get a listing of any other investments Ed Kramer has. Does he have stock in Apple? They’re funding a pedophile! Coca-cola? Don’t drink coke, they fund sex with young boys!

    Seriously, a lot of people put a lot of hard work into making this an enjoyable experience for everyone that comes. I hate for it to be tarnished so much by this one asshole who they kicked out 13 years ago.

  13. Even if I blindly accept the highest, most asinine estimates as to Kramer’s earnings from his Dragon*Con stake, anyone who believes that’s enough money to avoid prison on these charges without assistance from prosecutorial ineptitude has absolutely no idea how the real world works. An annual income in the low six figures is NOT enough cash to buy your way out of a criminal conviction unless those who are responsible for presenting the people’s case against you are embarrassingly incompetent. There is an alarming abundance of cluelessness from people who are utterly lacking in legal understanding and business knowledge in some of these comments, mostly from those who want to see the event buried.

    Also, words have meaning. What Kramer is accused of (and before some dimwitted conspiracy theorist starts in, I do not doubt he is guilty of at least most of those accusations) is pederasty, not pedophilia. If you can’t even get that right, get the hell off the internet, pick up a book without pictures from time to time, and focus on bettering YOURSELF for a while.

  14. @Aaron and jon – it is not in this clip, which is from the 10 pm newscast, but on the early evening spot, during the wrapup segment in the studio, Randy Travis stated that Kramer’s attorney had confirmed that he makes $150,000 every year from the convention. That’s what attorney McNeill Stokes has stated.

    @Neal, ahhh, the Dragon*Con “what if” defense. What if he had stock in Apple or Coke? Answer: Who cares, it’s irrelevant, unless you can prove that Coke is paying him $150k a year. At that point, or if Kramer is found to own one-third of the stock of Coke and is preventing the rest of the board from making needed changes to their business, I’ll probably quit drinking Sprite. But that’s a typical Dragon*Con defender’s answer, because the reality – your attendance nets that man that much money – makes you too uncomfortable, so you change the subject.

    @Rick Rottman – GOOD IDEA. Let him run the thing from prison. I doubt, even with Georgia’s silly laws, that he can sue Pat Henry for giving him more shares. Let all the stars come to Wyvern*Con instead. Nobody would have a problem with that!

  15. Jon: I am of the opinion one reason Kramer has been able to avoid trial for so long is because someone relatively powerful in Georgia politics pulling strings on his behalf behind the scenes. Why someone would be willing to do something like that is anyone’s guess. Although it would appear whoever it may have been has either died, retired, been voted out of office, or simply decided Kramer was no longer worth the risk, judging from his current situation. But funding from DragonCon also plays a very significant role in the story–and it certainly played a sizable portion in his traveling coast-to-coast while attempting to start a new career as a children’s talent agent & movie producer. As for the hair-splitting on pedophilia & pederasty–Kramer is believed to have started molesting his victims while they were as young as 9-10. That qualifies as pedophilia. His window of preference seems to be 10-14.

  16. Just leave this kid f*cker alone in general population for 10 minutes without security cameras Problem solved. And give whoever solves the problem a lifetime badge at Dragon*Con, if he ever gets out.

  17. Can people stop expressing Dragon Con as DC. Lets not get it confused with DC Comics. It’s not fair to them.

  18. guess its not only trying to avoid giving his victims justice now kramer is busy trying to avoid justice by filing frivelous lawsuits over how he is treated in prison. and would it be so terrible if a trial wound up killing kramer in the end as the reporter is claiming is another reason kramer has avoided justice for so long

  19. The reason they don’t shut down and then restart is brand recognition. (in that Dragon*Con is a recognized name, whereas whatever they changed it to wouldn’t be) The chances they will ever admit to this are slim.

  20. I’m going to try to be as polite as possible here, Nancy, but I also want to be very clear. I am not interested in conspiracy theories about a secret plot within the government to protect this waste of life. I am not interested in “is believed to have” from someone who has no access to case files, evidence, or anything more than hearsay on the internet. I’m only interested in reality. The reality is that despite all the “innocent until proven guilty” comments I’ve seen in these discussions, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. He may not have done everything he’s accused of doing, but he is obviously a predator who needs to be removed from society. The reality is that he’s avoided trial due to gross incompetence, period. People with access to far greater fortunes go to trial and then to prison on lesser charges every year.

    I realize judges and Gwinnett County officials don’t make for interesting, headline-grabbing targets the way Dragon*Con does, but they are the proper targets nonetheless. A criminal conviction will pave the way for convention organizers to do what everyone wants them to do, cutting this tumor of a human being out of their business. Where is the pressure on Georgia politicians? Where are the demonstrations demanding action outside the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center? Why is none of this being directed at the people responsible for years of freedom he never should have enjoyed?

    Trying to burn down the convention while giving a pass to the elected and appointed officials within the legal system whose incompetence allowed this situation to drag on for years upon years won’t bring this piece of garbage any closer to justice.

  21. This is a complicated legal situation. They cannot just dissolve the corporation and start a new one. For one, if they sell their parts they probably have to offer it to him first. They also would probably be faced with a non-competition clause if they did try and get out of Dragon Con, preventing them from starting a convention to directly compete with Dragon Con. They also, as some have suggested, cannot just lower prices to make it non-profitable. If they did that then he would sue, and win, because they are not operating in the best interest of the corporation financially. Literally they have very little choice but to keep Dragon Con as is. It doesn’t matter how much time they have had to figure this out, sometimes you just get stuck in a crappy situation. The problem DOES lie in the fact that he is innocent until proven guilty. Sure he is guilty, sure he is using Dragon Con funds to mount a defense. However, as he is innocent until proven guilty there is no law that can help you prevent a person facing trial from using his legitimate funds to mount the best possible defense he can. They need to get him to trial, if he gets a conviction this goes much easier and that is probably what Dragon Con’s people are hoping for. My knowledge in corporations doesn’t exist passed what I learned for the BAR exam, but I asked my friend who does know corporate law and he pretty much said they really don’t have a lot of options. What I do know is criminal law, and I know that it is REALLY impossible to try and mess with a defendants cash flow that is being used for defense unless it is being illegally detained, and if you do you are almost certainly go to be sued for essentially the cost of his legal defense. So, Dragon Con will be paying for his legal defense no matter WHAT they do.

  22. I love how in every report on this problem, some armchair lawyer comes up with a response that says that basically Pat Henry and the other stockholders have no choice whatsoever but to keep running Dragon*Con as is, every single year. Their hands are completely tied and they have been helpless for the last twelve years, forced to continue running the con and forced to keep raising prices. They’ve created a merry-go-round from which they can never, ever escape, because no business owner has ever wanted to retire or do something else or anything different with their life. Nobody’s ever moved from Disney to start Six Flags, or changed TV networks, or opened a new restaurant in the whole world. I like Rick Rottman’s idea. Give Kramer the convention, take a year off, and start a new Fantasy Fair or something.

    I don’t think much of Findo Gask’s point. For years, Dragon*Con’s “brand” has increasingly been “that convention started by the pedophile,” and their reputation is just getting worse. Maybe you don’t live in Atlanta, but people around here who don’t attend that con and never cared about it are talking about it in such a bad way that the Westboro Baptist Church could show up to protest and people here would think that’s a good thing.

    I agree with Jon’s point, however. Shouting conspiracy theories is pretty silly at this stage. Nancy Collins, you’re closer and closer to being proven right and exonerated after all these years. Don’t blow it now by acting like Alex Jones.

  23. There have been rumors about this for years that my friends and I have ignored, but I’m not going anymore. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I have a twelve year-old daughter. $150,000 of our money is what he’s using to pay his attorneys to keep him away from a trial. That’s not a strange scenario about stockholders dividends. That’s the real thing. He’s done this for years. I appreciate professionals like Ron Marz making the stand at last. I hope more will and maybe it will start making an impact on my friends.

  24. Jon: I have several hundred pages of court documents relating to Kramer’s case sitting in a file cabinet, including Pat Henry testifying on Kramer’s behalf at his 2000 bail/bond hearing. *All* of Kramer’s legal motions are public record. The findings by the Court of Appeals in Georgia and CT are online. As for the “conspiracy” theory as to why Kramer was given such lenient/preferential treatment–well, I would say people scoffed at Penn State, too. And nobody is covering the Georgia legal system in glory in all this. But to paraphrase you, yourself: “Trying to pillory the legal system of Gwinnett County while giving a pass to the convention whose incompetence allowed this situation to drag on for years upon years won’t bring this piece of garbage any closer to justice.”

  25. And I love how everyone rushing to dismiss the “conspiracy” theory that Kramer has benefited from some behind-the-scenes “juice” in order to stay out of a courtroom all these years assumes he doesn’t know/ have dirt on other pedophiles in the state of Georgia.

  26. Nancy, since he hasn’t gone to trial, the EVIDENCE against him has not been made public. You do not have access to it, and pretending otherwise makes you come off as less than credible. Again, I’m trying to be as polite as possible here.

    What you don’t seem to comprehend is that bringing him to justice is not the job of anyone involved with any convention. That responsibility falls upon Gwinnett County officials. Dragon*Con has not allowed him to escape trial for over a decade; Gwinnett County did that. Once again, I have to inject a little reality into the discussion and remind everyone that dollar amount repeated again and again isn’t nearly enough to avoid trial year after year after year without the complicity of inept prosecutors and unqualified judges. You make a remark about pillorying them out of one side of your mouth, but you suggest a conspiratorial cover-up within the government out of the other side. It’s perfectly acceptable to publish a thoughtless conspiracy theory and suggest the people tasked with his prosecution are either sexual predators themselves or protecting other sexual predators, but taking them to task for their incompetence? We’ll have none of that.

    The speculation and baseless insinuations do far more harm to your cause than good.

  27. Jon is the assclown from Chandler’s Bat and Grill, a site obsessed with Dragon Con and playing dress up. He wrote hundreds of pages on Nancy and I don’t think he has many readers except his mom who watches our for his special needs.
    The never will bes like lolz have the bravery of the keyboard, but likely work for Dragon Con or like small children themselves. Nancy’s work scares them.
    But both of you butthurt cretins need to know- between us Nancy and I got 6 more guests to drop out of DC just today. And September is coming. Hotels are family organizations. They don’t like molesters.

  28. Fascinated by people who think that any kind of a stand against a molester/rapist and any situation that aids him…could EVER be too much, too big or overkill.
    I mean, come on…it’s just child rape, right? It’s not as important as talking about laws in Georgia or defending a convention known best to professionals as the place where any female out alone at night can be assaulted.
    All Dragon Con owners can do is KEEP having this convention every year and selling tickets and tables for wallet gouging prices. I mean, they’re so helpless. How can anyone keep calling them out like this?
    Yeah, wishing someone to die by fire and then taking a shot at her deceased family member makes you sound completely reasonable. And the reasons for such behavior?
    How dare anyone be so incensed about child rape and cover up!

    *EYE ROLL*

  29. I don’t understand why the officers and employees of DragonCon couldn’t simply resign en masse. There is nothing in the law that would prohibit that. And if there’s no one to run the con, there are no profits, and Kramer gets nothing. That seems pretty damned easy to me.

  30. Well Terry, that would operate on the premise that the people running DC put children ahead of their profits ‘n good times.

    They don’t.

  31. It’s disturbing how far jon goes to attempt to credit Nancy, even as far as saying, ” I do not doubt he is guilty of at least most of those accusations) is pederasty, not pedophilia.” Really dude? That’s just…wow. Who does that? Me thinks someone protests too much.

  32. @Jon; you try to appear intelligent with your ‘pederasty’ comment, and yet you fail so miserably. You claim that Nancy has nothing to support her claim, and yet you make preposterous, unsubstantiated allegations of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct/incompetence? (Which, might I point out, is patently ridiculous. I think it would show up in far more cases than just Ed Kramer’s, if it were at all true.) May I ask why we should believe you over her? Because of your charm, maybe? Frankly, I’m more inclined to accept Nancy’s theory than yours, simply because it makes sense: just follow the money– 52,000 people, selling large numbers of hotel rooms (even the locals get rooms), doing a large amount of business with the bars and restaurants in the area… that adds up to some pretty nice tax revenue for both the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia. It is entirely possible- even likely- that Kramer cashed in some political capital to have someone gum up the works in his favor.

    As for what’s going on here, I understand the point of view of the protesters, but at the same time, I would suggest that your ultimately only going to be depriving yourselves of something you enjoy for little gain: the Con is now self-sustaining, and reducing its size by even 10k participants would only be a setback. I don’t believe you can even fault the D*C leaders for continuing on, anyway: people like to say “oh, the profits support Ed Kramer”, but that is frankly untrue. Perhaps when he was under house arrest that was the case, but now, it would be more correct to say that the profits from Dragon*Con support Ed Kramer’s Legal Team (who will be out of a job soon enough), because that money doesn’t afford him any special privileges while he’s wearing an orange jumpsuit.
    Any attempt to ‘punish’ Kramer further by killing Dragon*Con wouldn’t be taking any sort of moral stand, it would probably only be depriving people of perhaps the one good thing the slimeball ever was involved in, in his entire life.

    Instead, I would suggest that appointed leaders from among the protesters approach the board and arrange to sit down and try to reasonably assess the situation, what avenues have been investigated, and what recourse there may yet be available. Perhaps the board should retain an attorney expressly for the purpose of severing ties with Kramer; hire a private investigator to check Kramer’s financial dealings (felons seldom break only one law). Put their money where their mouths are, basically.

    tl;dr-
    Don’t accuse people of conspiracy theories when you’re backing an idea that is just as wild and without any proof of your own.
    Ed Kramer may be ‘receiving’ revenue, but as long as he’s behind bars, he’s only really lining the lawyers pockets.
    Instead of going on what might possibly be a fruitless crusade, I would suggest that both sides sit down together and address the problem directly, discuss what’s been tried and what might still be possible, etc. That will likely be much more productive than simply cutting into the profits a little bit by sitting out and convincing a few of your friends to do the same.

  33. And now Don Murphy has shown up with his merry band of trolls and even more asinine conspiracy theories. He talks about bravery of the keyboard while accusing me of being someone else and tossing out schoolyard names and insults at the expense of people with special needs. I’ve been called worse by much better (and far more accomplished) people, and I’m almost disappointed his paranoid delusions have convinced him I’m someone else. My real name is Jon, I have zero interest in costuming, and I’ve never written so much as one page about Nancy, never mind hundreds. I actually admire her for doing what she believes is right, even if I don’t personally approve of all her tactics, and I feel only disgust toward anyone who has harassed her over this matter.

    But so much for adults having a discussion. Donald ruined any chance of that continuing.

  34. Now that I see Nancy decided to share some pretty nasty insinuations herself over on Twitter, I suppose I should retract my comment about admiring her. That’s not something a person of character or integrity would do. While I may disagree with her, I would never suggest she’s a criminal or sexual predator over it. I’d be ashamed of myself if I stooped to the level of conduct exhibited by her and Donald, but some people clearly have no concept of what shame is.

  35. @SolidStateMind, I think that if a Dragon*Con member can’t deal with a single year without a con while it reorganizes administratively and reforms, then the member has more problems in life than cosplay wardrobe malfunctions. It’s not like Atlanta doesn’t have other conventions. It’s not like the southeast doesn’t have a concention somewhere in some town every other weekend. Locals or members from other cities, just go to one of those until DC gets its shit together and stops sending ticket money to Kramer. It’s not complicated.

  36. Kramer is guilty of everything he is accused of and I do know all the facts, as I am the mother of 2 of the boys. I am the one who made contact with the police. I was there when my children told me what this man did to them. I called the police 30 sec. later and he was in jail that day. Kramer was been able to avoid trial, due to a lot of funding to pay for his lawyers and doctors. Whom I am sure were given some kind of benefits of some kind. He knows how to work the system. Faking his or in the very least exaggerating them to a great deal. Quiet a number of court dates have been set over the last 13 years. A number of them were canceled on a Friday, when we were supposed to go to court on a Monday. Kramer filing a motion that he needs emergency medical treatment for some strange ailment or another.

    We have been ready and willing to go to trial for over 12 years, now. We will go to court. We will not go away. We will see this to the end. We will have our day in court.

    Now, I am not going to give my real name. I am doing this to protect the boys. They are now men and have full happy lives, in spite of what that monster has done to them. We also have had to struggle as a family to heal. Kramer is a master manipulator, as he has done with the court system. He manipulated me. I unknowingly put my children in harms way. Thank goodness my son came forward, as I also have a third son who was coming of just the right age for Kramer. Luckily he was spared.

    I don’t know about all of this arguing about Dragon Con. I had never heard of it, until I met Kramer. I do not run in those circles. I am a good Christian, or at least I try to be. I have been teaching for 25 years and try to keep my nose clean. I look back and I don’t ” I have called on God many times to help me through this. I think that I have forgiven and put this in the back of my mind. Then it comes to the news, again. All the anger, hatred and rage comes rushing back.

    So, bickering about Dragon Con, remember there are boys, now men who are still dealing with this. There are other victims, too. They did come forward to the DA, but to much time had lapsed and they were not as strong as my boys and the 3rd boy are. It takes a lot of courage to come forward. And hope someone believes, and still all these many years later, to still want to see Kramer put away for life.

    All I’m asking, is to remember the victims, in this, Especially the children.

  37. I want to clarify. I was reading what I wrote and, when I said “I don’t run in those circles.” It didn’t sound very nice. Not what I intended. I am just in a different circle. I hope that makes since. I didn’t mean to offend, anyone. I didn’t go to Dragon Con before him or after him.

    All this talk about circles, I am feeling dizzy, lol I just wanted to clarify.

  38. Don, if I choose to speak on a subject I do so with my own name and always have. I’ve certainly done so in enough forums before now so I would have no reason to do otherwise here.

    Further, I do not now and have never worked for Dragon*Con. Wrong state and my day job keeps me a little too busy.

    And the best you can do with trying to engage in an adult conversation is make accusations of pedophilia against those who disagree with you? If you’re trying to show us all what an emotionally and mentally stunted man-child you are… Mission accomplished.

    And the other attempted insult about the bravery of the keyboard? Really? With your reputation on the web?

    Thanks for the laugh.

  39. SolidStateMind,

    I would tend to disagree with the idea that the conspiracy theory is believable based on the idea of following the money. While that might make sense in other scenarios, it doesn’t here.

    When Kramer was originally arrested, Dragon*Con was much smaller than the Dragon*con of the numbers you cite. They were floating at around or just under 20,000 attendees back then. Even through 2005 or 2006, they were still in the 20,000s. While that’s still an impressive number, it truly paled in comparison to other attractions. The risks wouldn’t have been worth the rewards.

    Besides that, Kramer is irrelevant to the money equation in such a scenario. Dragon*Con has continued on without Kramer’s involvement in running the operation and has in fact seen explosive growth in the last five or six years. Kramer could have been tried, convicted and sentenced to decades of jail time in 2001 and it would have mattered not one bit. The Kramerless Dragon*Con would still have existed, still grown and still brought 50,000 or more people into Atlanta by 2012. If the convention exists the money comes into Atlanta each year. Kramer isn’t the money. The convention is the money. There would have been no reward whatsoever for someone to protect Kramer for all these years.

    Conspiracy theories are just garbage used to muddy the water. They’re just a pointless game of what if and are of little more value than gossip and rumors and usually possessing less truth. Most of them cannot be disproven for the same reason that they cannot be proven; they require no facts whatsoever. That’s likely why so many people like to throw them out to muddy the waters or twist and turn opinion. They just get to say whatever they want and then play Criswell and demand that everyone else prove that they’re not true.

    Conspiracy theories are best left to the people who think a secret organization is actually running all the world’s governments or that the government has been faking one disaster after the other over the last few decades. They add nothing of substance and usually end up taking away any credibility from a discussion.

  40. To THE MOM: I had heard vague rumors about this about 5-7 years ago, but never really heard any more. Although I’m into comics and attend local conventions, I’m not really into “convention culture,” so, reading this story was new information for me.

    I want to assure you that, as someone new to this, my first thought was of the boys this happened to. I’m very glad to hear you report that they are healthy and happy and healing. To me, that is the most important thing that can come from this.

    As for Ed Kramer? Maybe he’s not faking. Maybe his life being filled with pain and physical agony is just the beginning of his punishment here on earth… and that is only a small sample of what he may have to face in the afterlife.

    I’m not going to dwell on that, however. I trust in God that justice will ultimately prevail. And I trust that it will be here on earth, where we can all see it.

    Hang in there and — if it is any small consolation — know that there are many people out here who are outraged, angry and thirst for justice for ALL the boys who suffered from this deplorable creature.

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