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A plaintiff using the initials M.S.G. filed a civil lawsuit today in Multnomah County Circuit Court against the LGBTQ rights pioneer and real estate developer Terry Bean.
Based on WW's earlier reporting, M.S.G. are the initials of the young man who is the alleged victim in a pending criminal sex abuse proceeding against Bean in Lane County Circuit Court.
The tangled case dates to 2013, when as WW originally reported, Bean and another adult male, Kiah Lawson, allegedly had sex with a 15-year-old young man in Eugene. (Bean lives in Portland but was in Eugene to watch a football game at his alma mater, the University of Oregon.)
In 2014, the Lane County District Attorney charged Bean in that case. Bean tried to settle the case through what is known as a "civil compromise," in which he would pay the young man $220,000 and the case would be dropped. The judge refused to allow that result, however, and ordered that the case proceed.
On the eve of trial, the young man disappeared. Without his testimony, the case against Bean was dismissed in September 2015.
Bean, a prolific Democratic Party fundraiser for decades, seemed to be in the clear.
But then, in a bizarre twist, it turned out that Lori Deveny, a lawyer representing the young man, had accepted a settlement payment of $220,000 for him from Bean (in defiance of the judge's orders). But rather than giving the money to the young man, Deveny allegedly pocketed nearly all of the settlement money. (The lawsuit says Deveny paid him just $5,000.)
The young man complained to the Oregon State Bar, and apparently reversed his earlier decision not to testify against Bean. In January, the Lane County District Attorney's office re-indicted Bean on the sex abuse charges dismissed in 2015.
Today's civil filing complicates the situation for Bean further.
The lawsuit says that a confidential agreement for Bean to pay M.S.G. was "unlawful and void," because it "forbade M.S.G from testifying in any criminal proceeding against Bean."
The lawsuit includes three agreements: the first one was rejected by the judge. The next two, which the lawsuit says M.S.G. was not aware of, call for Bean to make separate payments of $20,000 and $200,000. The lawsuit alleges Deveny agreed to the payments without M.S.G. or his guardian's knowledge or approval.
M.S.G.'s attorney, Sean Riddell, declined to comment.
Bean's attorney, Derek Ashton, couldn't immediately be reached for comment but when Bean was indicted in January, Ashton said his client was the victim of a shakedown.
"This offensive lawsuit demanding over $6 million dollars proves yet again that the accuser is interested in one thing only: money," Ashton said in a statement. "In 2015, the accuser also demanded a substantial sum of money by using the threat of a civil lawsuit in the midst of the criminal proceeding. At that time, Mr. Bean made a business decision and agreed to a civil compromise in order to settle these disputed claims…We're confident Mr. Bean will clear his name."
Last week, the Portland Tribune reported that the Portland law firm Bodyfelt Mount LLC filed a bar complaint against one of its former attorneys based on information from a former firm employee, alleging that a former Bodyfelt lawyer had aided in a 2015 scheme to keep "a key witness" from testifying against Bean.
The lawsuit seeks payment of the $220,000 Bean offered and $6.15 million in damages.