OREGON: Prosecutors Reveal Additional Sex Abuse Allegations Against Terry Bean

Via Williamette Week:

Prosecutors say Portland real-estate developer and Democratic Party activist Terry Bean engaged in sex with an underaged boy in 1979, providing the 16-year-old with alcohol and drugs. The teenager later tried to kill himself after Bean broke off the relationship, court records say. The records were filed by prosecutors late Thursday in Lane County Circuit Court as part of an ongoing criminal case against Bean. Bean in November 2014 was charged with two counts of third-degree sodomy, a felony, and one count of sexual abuse in the third degree, a misdemeanor, allegedly involving a 15-year-old boy. Prosecutors say they wanted to introduce evidence of Bean's "prior bad acts" dating back to 1979 into the current case to establish a pattern of sexual abuse by Bean. The events described in the filing are beyond the statue of limitations.

Bean is a co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign and was the largest Oregon fundraiser for both Obama presidential campaigns. Last week the attorney for Bean requested the dismissal of the original charges after Bean reportedly reached a civil settlement with the alleged victim, whom he met on Grindr. Prosecutors are opposing the dismissal motion. From Bean's attorney:

A civil compromise was filed on July 2 with a statement by the “alleged victim” that he has no interest in prosecuting this case and never did. A civil compromise represents a resolution of criminal charges that satisfies both parties. There is a hearing on this compromise on Thursday, July 16. The law allows a civil compromise in this case. However, the special prosecutor is objecting for dubious reasons. For almost two years, Terry Bean has been the victim of Kiah Lawson’s schemes and lies which have led law enforcement to harass Mr. Bean’s friends, seek out old acquaintances and threaten him with further prosecution unless he admits to events that did not occur.

World Net Daily is thrilled with the latest developments:

The Eugene paper noted Bean was first recognized for his activism in the 1970s when he helped persuade the Eugene City Council to pass an ordinance barring discrimination based on sexual orientation. Scott Lively, known for his opposition to the “gay” rights agenda, was communications director for an activist group that proposed ballot measures in the early 1990s to defend against the homosexual movement. He told WND in an interview the Bean case fits a pattern. “This is very common,” he said. “We see gay-activist leaders, one after another, being accused, sometimes charged, with pederasty – adult male homosexuality with teenage boys.” Oregon voters, Lively said, could have “stopped the LGBT agenda dead in its tracks” in 1992 by supporting the ballot measures he promoted. He pointed out that prosecutors allege regarding the 2013 charge that Bean paid the victim $40 after the encounter and encouraged the boy to join a support group for “gay” youths. “I have alleged for many years that these LGBT youth groups are really not much more than grooming center for predators, and this supports that allegation,” Lively told WND.

Regarding the original charges, Bean contends that he is the victim of an "extortion ring" that included ex-boyfriend Kiah Lawson, who claims to have discovered that Bean secretly videotaped sexual encounters with Lawson and other men in Bean's bedroom. It was Bean who first went to police in June 2014 to charge that Lawson and others were demanding money in exchange for remaining silent about the videotaping. In March 2014, Bean filed for a restraining order against Lawson, claiming domestic physical abuse. In that petition, Bean claimed that Lawson is a crystal meth addict who had burglarizing his home and charged $15K on stolen credit cards. He also accused Lawson of dealing meth out of Bean's second home, a condo where Lawson lived at that time. Bean claims that police characterized his accusations as a civil dispute between landlord and tenant.

RELATED:  In August 2014, a New Jersey man filed a federal lawsuit against Grindr, alleging that the hook-up app's "lax age verification standards" led him to be arrested for having sex with a 13 year-old boy who had been allowed to be a paying member of the site. Grindr's motion to dismiss cited the Communications Decency Act, which they claim immunizes companies from bad acts resulting from misinformation provided by other parties. They additionally claimed that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is "not feasible" for web publishers to verify the age of users. The lawsuit was dismissed in March of this year.