LGBTQ Civil Rights Pioneer Terry Bean Arrested, Accused of Paying Off Underaged Teen After Sexual Encounter

Terry Bean, LGBTQ civil rights pioneer and the co-founder of both the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, has been arrested in connection with alleged crimes that supposedly took place following a sexual encounter with a male teenager in 2013, reports Oregon newspaper Willamette Week.

The newspaper recalled that Bean had been accused of having sex with a 15-year-old male at a motel in 2013, together with another man, Kiah Lawson. The case was initially dropped when the teen refused to testify.

But, the newspaper report recounted, the young man - no longer a teen now - changed course and allowed the case to be refiled. The newspaper account indicated that money was at the crux of the reversal: The story said that the alleged victim had had money stolen from him by Lori Deveny, the lawyer who represented him at the time when Bean paid out $220,000 to settle the case.

The new charges resulted in Lawson's conviction and a two-year prison sentence. Bean, who had hired a new lawyer, got his trial delayed until next spring.

But Bean and Ashton were arrested on new charges alleging that they tampered with the alleged victim by offering him money not to testify in the original case, reported local news channel KATU. Bean's previous lawyer, Derek Ashton, was also arrested in connection with those accusations, with authorities saying that Ashton him and Deveny - the former lawyer for the alleged victim - struck a deal.

Bean has been charged with "sodomy" and sexual abuse in connection with the alleged sexual encounter in 2013, media reports noted.

Steve Sherlag, who is currently representing Bean, told the media that his client "unequivocally denies all of the state's claims and their attendant innuendo."