EUGENE -- The trial dropped bombshell after bombshell allegation: a Grindr app meeting, adult men engaging in sex acts with a 15-year-old boy, a scorned ex-boyfriend, a purported extortion plot against a well-known Portland gay activist and disavowals that any crimes occurred.

But a Lane County Circuit Court jury sorted through the messy details and took only two hours Friday to return a guilty verdict against Kiah Loy Lawson on two counts of third-degree sodomy and one count of third-degree sexual abuse.

The verdict is a blow to Lawson’s co-defendant and former boyfriend, Terry Bean -- the Portland real estate developer, civil rights trailblazer and Democratic fundraiser. Bean, 71, faces trial in two months on the same charges.

Both men were accused of picking up the 15-year-old boy in Bean’s Mercedes S500 from a 7-Eleven in Eugene in September 2013 after meeting him via Grindr, an online dating app for gay men.

Police and prosecutors alleged the men drove the teenager to a Eugene motel room, sexually abused him, showered with him and then sent him home in a cab after Bean gave him $40 for his fare. At the time, Lawson was 24 and Bean was 65.

During the three-day trial, Lawson testified that he and Bean picked up the boy, but said they promptly dropped him off after learning he wasn’t 18, as he had claimed on the app. Neither of them engaged in any sex acts with the boy, Lawson said.

But Lawson conceded that he is the reason Portland police started investigating both Bean and him.

He testified that he was upset with the way Bean had treated him after their relationship ended badly. Bean had refused to give him a $40,000 payout that had been negotiated between their lawyers after Bean secretly video-recorded him in the bedroom and bathroom, Lawson said.

So in July 2014 he said he went to police with a made-up story about Bean -- telling Portland Detective Jeff Myers that Bean had engaged in sex acts with the boy in the motel room.

But after Myers tracked down and interviewed the teenager, Lawson also was charged with the same crimes.

“It’s ironic how everything has essentially flipped on me,” Lawson told jurors.

Lawson described how he felt controlled and taken advantage of by Bean. He said Bean had lavished attention on him. Bean ultimately put up Lawson in his Hayden Island condo and told the younger man to quit his job because Bean would pay him a “salary,” Lawson said.

“He provided me with a lot of money, perks, travel, shopping -- everything I needed and wanted, really,” Lawson said. But Bean had stipulations, too, such as he didn’t want Lawson to have a cellphone, Lawson said.

Lawson said after three to four months of dating, he felt as if Bean was using him to lure men to have sex. Lawson said he watched as Bean wooed his conquests, sometimes paying “younger people” a couple of hundred dollars to have sex.

“He would tell me how he liked younger guys,” Lawson said. “Also, he told me about a couple of times he had paid off younger people who were underage, just not to say things.”

“At first I felt special,” Lawson said. “... I thought I had it good. But then I realized that’s how he treated everybody and that was how it was just his M.O. to sleep with younger people.”

Lawson insisted that when it came to that September 2013 night in Eugene, the encounter never happened after he connected Bean and the boy through the hook-up app. The teen never stepped foot in the motel room, he testified.

Senior prosecutor Erik Hasselman told jurors that Lawson couldn’t be believed.

Hasselman said Lawson has been convicted 14 times -- 10 of them felonies -- for “crimes of dishonesty” or other transgressions. Court records show various convictions, including for assault and theft.

On the other hand, Hasselman noted that the 15-year-old boy is now a 21-year-old man, works two jobs and has never been convicted of a crime.

“The question for you is who is telling the truth?” Hasselman said.

Eleven jurors sided with the young man. He took the stand to swear that both Lawson and Bean had taken him to the motel room and sexually abused him. He wore a crisp white shirt and charcoal suit as he testified, his voice quivering at times.

He said when he was 15, he had come out as gay only to his mother and a close friend. He said he surfed Grindr looking for someone to experiment with and that’s when he found Lawson. He was intrigued by the then-24-year-old, nine years his senior, he said.

The young man told jurors that he wasn’t interested in having sexual contact with Bean, who was 50 years older, but he didn’t stop him.

“I wasn’t planning on meeting up with Terry,” he said. “... He was just sort of there.”

The young man said he had no idea who Bean was.

“I felt like it was consensual because I didn’t know any better,” he said. “I felt like it was fine." He said he has tried to block the encounter from his mind but has come to realize it was wrong.

“Now that I’m 21 and I look back ... I was just a kid,” he said. “It’s super disturbing. I’m so embarrassed.”

The 12th juror voted to acquit Lawson.

Defense attorney Rebecca Davis told jurors that the young man conjured up a story of sex abuse because he’s interested in winning a lawsuit he filed against Bean earlier this year. His story, Davis contended, is a fabrication.

“The only thing that makes sense is that (the young man) is saying and doing what he needs to do to get money out of Mr. Bean,” Davis said.

The history of the case is long and convoluted.

In late 2014, Bean and Lawson were originally charged with sex crimes against the teen. But in 2015 on the day their cases were scheduled to go to trial, the young man failed to show up. Police and prosecutors have alleged the teen hid out in a mountain cabin because Bean agreed to pay him a total of $220,000 as a reward for not testifying then.

Prosecutors refiled the case earlier this year after the young man came forward again, saying his attorney at the time, Lori Deveny, failed to give him the money he was due.

Two months after the prosecution this year refiled the criminal case, the young man filed a $6.15 million lawsuit against Bean, alleging that the encounter caused him lasting damage. The civil case has yet to go to trial, pending the outcome of the criminal charges against Bean.

Lawson, now 30, is already serving a prison sentence of nearly three years for an unrelated burglary and car theft case. He is expected to face at least 1 ½ years to two years more time in prison when he’s sentenced next week. Lawson will have to register as a sex offender.

Bean didn't attend the trial, but he had two hired representatives who did, paying close attention to the evidence as it played out.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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