Clarence Thomas' benefactor, Harlan Crow, collects Adolph Hitler artifacts, while his brother, Trammell Crow Jr., is the central figure in sex-trafficking lawsuit

Harlan Crow's Nazi collection

 

Harlan Crow, the billionaire benefactor of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has a collection of Hitler artifacts and other Nazi memorabilia, according to published reports. Crow's brother, Trammell Crow Jr., is a central figure in a lawsuit involving an alleged sex-trafficking ring, federal-court documents show.

The Hitler story broke last week at the Washingtonian, which reports under the headline "Clarence Thomas’s Billionaire Benefactor Collects Hitler Artifacts; Harlan Crow also reportedly has a garden full of dictator statues":

When Republican megadonor Harlan Crow isn’t lavishing Justice Clarence Thomas with free trips on his private plane and yacht (in possible violation of Supreme Court ethics rules), he lives a quiet life in Dallas among his historical collections. These collections include Hitler artifacts—two of his paintings of European cityscapes, a signed copy of Mein Kampf, and assorted Nazi memorabilia—plus a garden full of statues of the 20th century’s worst despot.

Crow, the billionaire heir to a real-estate fortune, has said that he’s filled his property with these mementoes because he hates communism and fascism. Nonetheless, his collections caused an uproar back in 2015 when Marco Rubio attended a fundraiser at Crow’s house on the eve of Yom Kippur. Rubio’s critics thought the timing was inappropriate given, you know, the Hitler stuff.

“I still can’t get over the collection of Nazi memorabilia,” says one person who attended an event at Crow’s home a few years ago and asked to remain anonymous. “It would have been helpful to have someone explain the significance of all the items. Without that context, you sort of just gasp when you walk into the room.” One memorable aspect was the paintings: “something done by George W. Bush, next to a Norman Rockwell, next to one by Hitler.” They also said it was “startling” and “strange” to see the dictator sculptures in the backyard.

In 2014, when Crow’s house was included in a public tour of historic homes, a reporter from the Dallas Morning News visited. Apparently, Crow was visibly uncomfortable with questions about his dictator statues and Hitler memorabilia, preferring to discuss his other historical collections: documents signed by the likes of Christopher Columbus and George Washington; paintings by Renoir and Monet; statues of two of Crow’s heroes, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

But despite Crow’s discomfort, the reporter did manage to see the garden of dictator statues, describing it as a “historical nod to the facts of man’s inhumanity to man.” Among the figures in the “Garden of Evil” are Lenin and Stalin, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito. 

These are apparently not statues that Crow has commissioned—Crow has said that they’re bona-fide artifacts from public squares across Europe and Asia that citizens toppled at the end of dictatorial regimes. According to Crow, the white streaks on the Lenin statue are the remnants of paint thrown by furious Russians, and the chunks missing from Stalin are evidence of the wrath of the anti-Communist hordes. Crow says that the Gavrilo Princip statue had to be smuggled across the border between Serbia and Croatia disguised as rubble for fear that the Croatian border guards might destroy it in rage.

The person we talked to who visited Crow’s home says that it felt sort of like a museum (“just a bunch of collectibles everywhere from major historical events”) and describes the Crows as “such hospitable Texas hosts.” The evening wasn’t unpleasant, they say, “just strange—they had family photos in one room, then all this WWII stuff in another room, and dictators in the backyard.”

As for Trammell Crow Jr., a lawsuit says he was "the key" to a sex-trafficking ring's "long-running success. Reports The Dallas Express:

In federal court documents filed in California, Dallas real-estate heir and investor Trammell Crow Jr. is accused by two women of financially supporting and participating in an alleged human-trafficking ring that victimized them over the course of 12 years.

Last November, Julia Hubbard and Kayla Goedinghaus filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against dozens of individuals and businesses, including Crow and even a Texas Ranger sergeant named Cody Mitchell.

Trammell Crow Jr.

In their sworn complaint, Hubbard and Goedinghaus assert that a man named Richard Hubbard ran a human-trafficking operation allegedly “with the essential financial assistance and influence” of billionaire Crow.

The two women allege that under the direction of Richard Hubbard, a psychologist, Dr. Benjamin Todd Eller, falsely claimed that they were “seriously psychiatrically troubled” in order to secure heavy-dose prescriptions of “Xanax, Adderall, Oxycodone, Marinol, Soma, Lorazepam, Ambien, and Trazadone.”

While Eller was unable to write these prescriptions himself as a psychologist, a number of medical doctors reportedly participated in the scheme. The women claim they informed the medical doctors of their abuse, but none stopped the abuse or assisted them in any way.

Each of these health-care providers is also named in the complaint.

These drugs were then allegedly used to control the women, and if they refused to participate in various sex acts, were withheld or threatened to be withheld, causing the two to fear for their lives.

In their complaint, the women claim Crow “was a key” to the scheme’s “existence and long running success,” which they assert began in 2010.

The women claim that in exchange for financial support, Richard Hubbard would “supply drugs for Crow’s parties, would force [Julia] Hubbard to have sex with Crow’s then-girlfriend in front of Crow…, would force Goedinghaus to have sex in front of Crow…, and would traffic other victims” to Crow’s “Forced Sex Parties.”

Julia Hubbard also claims that she appealed to Crow directly to stop this abuse, but he “took no action” and instead served as the conduit to bring other “co-investors and clients” into the scheme.