Civil-rights pioneer and Democratic Party fundraiser, Terry Bean, has been indicted on sodomy and sex abuse charges for allegedly having sex with a teenage boy back in 2013.
Court records suggest prosecutors have re-filed a case they dropped in 2015 after the alleged teen victim would not testify. The victim’s initials and the year when the crime is alleged to have taken place are the same in both cases.
A Lane County grand jury indicted Bean on two counts of felony sodomy and one count of sex abuse, a misdemeanor, for having sex with a child under the age of 16.
Bean reportedly offered the alleged underage victim $220,000 to accept a civil compromise a type of alternative resolution to a criminal charge. But the trial judge refused to accept the civil compromise. A trial was set for August 11, 2015.
But weeks before the trial, the alleged victim simply disappeared. The trial was postponed but when the alleged victim surfaced, he refused to testify. Charges against Bean were dismissed, without prejudice, on Sept. 1, 2015.
Bean’s lawyer Derek Ashton said Bean’s accuser only wants money and that this is a continuation “of the 2014 blackmail scam” by Bean’s former boyfriend, the accuser, and others. “Mr. Bean is the victim and he has paid enough.”
Bean raised money for a variety of Democratic politicians, most notably former President Barack Obama, who hosted Bean in the White House and on Air Force One.
