The woman walked to the front of a downtown Portland courtroom and breathed deeply, shaking slightly as she started to read.

She stood just steps away from Thomas Walter Oliver, convicted Friday of raping or sexually attacking 11 women and teenage girls over a nine-year span.

Oliver, 37, had worked as an independent Portland photographer and videographer, filming some of the city's most prominent musical bands. He had gained popularity and friends for it. He also acquired standing while working as a crew member on NBC's six-season TV drama, "Grimm," filmed in Portland.

The woman, now in her 30s, looked into Oliver's eyes.

“I’m the reason you are here,” she told him. “That all these women you delighted in brutalizing are the reason you’re here."

She continued: “Light is the greatest disinfectant. And if anything good can come from this I hope that it will bring attention to the widespread issue of creative scenes protecting men who abuse and mistreat women."

Wearing a blue jail uniform, Oliver stood next to his court-appointed attorney as Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric Bergstrom sentenced him to 30 years in prison.

Oliver was acquaintances or friends with many of his victims. He met one on the dating site Tinder. Another was a neighbor. He met another at a music festival.

Three were working in the sex industry. Six were younger than 18, prosecutors said.

The attacks took place in his car, in motels and in private homes after parties. Some of his victims had been drinking.

Many didn’t report being sexually assaulted at first -- out of embarrassment, out of lack of support or out of fear they would be ostracized by the circle of friends they had in common with Oliver, said Senior Deputy District Attorney JR Ujifusa.

Another woman, who was 20 in 2012 when she reported that Oliver had raped her, said in a statement read aloud in court that police told her that they didn't have evidence they needed to prove a case, and that another victim would have to come forward first.

She said Oliver was dangerous, that he offered her $1,000 to find someone younger to have sex with. “He asked to have sex with my 14-year-old sister,” she said in the statement.

In 2016, after another victim told police Oliver had attacked her, the criminal cases against him gained momentum. Oliver was arrested in 2017 and within months, the number of victims who had contacted police reached the double digits.

Ujifusa said that helped secure the convictions against Oliver in a case that lacked much physical evidence. Months and years had passed before many of the women went to police, so it was too late to collect DNA to link the attacks to Oliver.

Defense attorney DeAnna Horne said Oliver agreed to a plea deal to spare the women and his family the pain of a trial. He has a sex addiction and has been going through a 12-step program, she said.

“I’d like to express my godly sorrow to the court, the community of Portland and my victims,” Oliver said. “... To all of my victims, my prayer is for restorative healing in each life that I have caused hurt.”

Oliver pleaded guilty to first-degree rape, attempted rape, sodomy, unlawful sexual penetration, sexual abuse and using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct.

The woman -- who had earlier in the hearing looked Oliver in the eyes -- said she remembers the house party where he raped her. She remembers how everyone else had left and then he was dragging her across the hardwood floor.

“I couldn’t believe that you were doing this,” she said. “My head hurt from where you’d hit me on the tub or a counter. ...There was no way for me to run.”

Oliver strangled her so hard that the blood vessels broke in her eyes and face. She thought she would die, she said.

She fled when Oliver fell asleep. “It was fear like I’d never felt before,” she said. “Any creak of the floorboards in my ears was like a bomb detonating.”

She said she found little support from mutual friends, including one who told her he’d stand by Oliver because he considered Oliver his best friend.

“People don’t understand what it’s like to be raped by a friend that you trust versus a stranger,” she said.

The woman then directed her comments to Oliver again.

“Yours is not a sickness of mind or body, it is a sickness of character,” she said. “You grew up a white man from a loving home with every advantage. No one made you this way but yourself.

“I don’t want you to ever be free again, because I believe you will always be a danger. I think sexual assault is the joy of your life.”

Read the woman's full statement here.

Oliver will be 65 years old when he is released from prison. He will be on post-prison supervision for nearly 12 years after that.

-- Aimee Green