Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum Returns $1,300 in Campaign Contributions to Terry Bean

State's top law enforcement officer accepted four checks from developer, who was charged with sex crime last year.

By Nigel Jaquiss

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has returned $1,300 in campaign contributions to Terry Bean, a Portland real estate investor and gay rights pioneer.

Bean, who was a co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C. advocacy group, has been a prolific fundraiser for Democratic candidates, including President Barack Obama.

In 2014, a Lane County grand jury indicted Bean and another man on charges of sexually abusing a 15-year-old male in 2013. Bean offered the alleged victim more than $200,000 in an effort to settle the matter civilly but the judge in the criminal case refused to allow that resolution. On Sept. 1, 2015 the case against Bean and his co-defendant, Kiah Lawson, was dismissed when the the alleged victim refused to testify.

State filings show that Bean wrote four separate checks to Rosenblum's campaign this year, totaling $1,300. (Rosenblum is married to Richard Meeker, the co-owner of WW's parent company.)

On Sept. 28, WW reported on Bean's donations to Rosenblum.

Rosenblum returned the donations on Oct. 2, a decision first reported by the Salem Statesman Journal.

WW asked Rosenblum's campaign yesterday to comment on why it returned the checks. Campaign manager Dan Kully has not yet responded.

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