Updated Sept. 2, 2019

New court documents filed Friday in the Terry Bean sex abuse case allege that Bean’s lawyer had been colluding with an accuser’s lawyer for months to get the accuser to remain silent.

Lane County prosecutors on Friday asked the court to allow them to present evidence at trial that Bean, a prominent Democratic fundraiser and Portland real estate broker, bribed an alleged victim with more than $200,000 to remain silent in a sex abuse case against him.

Prosecutors asked that the judge deny Bean’s motion to keep the evidence out of trial.

Bean, who is scheduled for trial in November on charges of sex abuse and third-degree sodomy, allegedly paid $200,000 after his accuser failed to show up for trial. The alleged victim, identified in court papers only as “MSG,” claims Bean sexually abused him in 2013 when he was 15 years old.

MSG is one of two men who have publicly accused Bean of sexual abuse. They have both filed civil suits against Bean, in addition to the criminal case by MSG.

Court documents released Friday reveal extensive contact between Bean’s attorney, Derek Ashton, and MSG’s then-attorney, Lori Deveny. The documents include a report by Portland police detective Jeff Myers, who details interviews with the victim, attempts to contact him, and details of emails and texts between Deveny and Ashton that he obtained regarding Deveny’s efforts to get MSG to not show up for trial and avoid police detection.

Clifford Davidson, one of Bean’s current lawyers, argues that the detective’s report is not evidence "but an advocacy piece mischaracterizing numerous witness statements.''

According to court documents, Bean was indicted in December of 2014 and a trial was set to begin Sept. 1, 2015. But MSG didn’t appear in court that day, and the state moved to dismiss the case. The next day, Bean made an agreement with Deveny to resolve all claims between them for $200,000, having already wired $20,000 to Deveny in July.

On Sept. 8, court documents say, Bean wired $200,000 to MSG. Prosecutors say Bean also tried to have the case dismissed several weeks before it was supposed to go to trial.

“To the State’s knowledge, at that time, the only connection between and claim against the defendant from MSG were the allegations regarding the defendant’s sexual activity with MSG at a time when MSG was fifteen years of age,” court documents state.

Deveny recently pleaded not guilty to 92 counts related to accusations that she stole money held in trust for her clients.

In his report, Myers describes traveling in July 2015 to Oceanside, California, where MSG lived, to serve him with a subpoena for a trial that was set to begin Aug. 11. Myers said Deveny refused to accept service of the subpoena on MSG’s behalf. Myers also described several interviews with friends of MSG and his mother, who told him that they were trying to avoid being served.

In August of 2018, Myers said, MSG called him and reported that Deveny had embezzled money from him. Shortly thereafter, she was charged with 92 counts related to stealing from clients.

In January 2019, after MSG had decided to pursue a criminal case against Bean and his partner, Kiah Lawson, Myers said MSG told him why he didn’t appear for his initial trial.

“She told me not to talk to certain people, she told me to go on the run at a certain point,” MSG said of Deveny. “She told me to come back out of the run. You know, she told me to just, I just did what my attorney told me to do.”

Myers says MSG also told him that he would not get his money if he testified. Myers also reported that at Deveny’s direction, MSG and his mother were told not to use credit cards and to use burner phones to avoid police detection.

Myers also describes interviews with employees at the law firm Bodyfelt Mount LLP, who were allegedly part of a plan to hide witnesses in the Bean case.

According to interviews with an attorney at the firm, an employee approached her on Jan. 16, 2019, and told her she thought she had done something “really bad” and was worried it could have an impact on the firm.

The employee refers to a witness named “Dr. Glenn Strome,” whom Deveny got an attorney from Bodyfelt Mount to represent. The employee said, “’Dr. Strome knew Terry Bean’s preferences, um, and the preferences were for minors, um, and that there was some effort to, um, try to quash the subpoena to Dr. Strome to testify in the case, and that there was some sort of declaration or affidavit associated with the attempt to quash the subpoena.”

The same employee said Deveny paid her several thousand dollars to allow MSG and his mother to hide out in her cabin in Pine Hollow.

Bean, prosecutors said, claims to have had other reasons for sending $200,000 to MSG and has asked the court to exclude that evidence.

Davidson, Bean’s lawyer, issued this statement in response to the new court filings:

“The State is trying to claim that a routine and lawful settlement agreement is now evidence of a criminal conspiracy, when it was the State that suggested to MSG’s family that they could make money by going after Mr. Bean in court. And it was the State that referred MSG to his lawyer, Ms. Deveny, who did exactly what the State expected her to: She demanded a large monetary settlement from Mr. Bean; and threatened to file a civil lawsuit while the criminal prosecution was pending, unless Mr. Bean paid. When Mr. Bean finally agreed to MSG’s demand to settle the threatened civil claim, due to the harm a civil case would cause while a criminal case was pending, because of the publicity and juror influence, the State (which set the civil process in motion) suddenly feigned surprise, claiming bribery and tampering. The State knows that their sex abuse case against Bean is floundering, so they are now desperately grasping at straws to distract from the fact that they yet again have no case.”

It’s the second time Bean was indicted in the same case. The first indictment in November 2014 was dismissed without prejudice on Sept. 1, 2015, after MSG didn’t testify.

Bean, now 70, was indicted in January on charges of sodomy and sex abuse in the case. Bean has pleaded not guilty. His trial is set for Nov. 13.

On Aug. 29, 2015, days before MSG failed to show up for trial, Deveny wrote to Ashton, “If he wants people to think the kid is not Being [sic] paid to show up, I *have [sic] to have a different narrative or it looks like collusion.”