The basic facts: Portland’s gay mayor, then 42-year-old Sam Adams, groomed a 17-year-old intern for sex and asked him to lie about it, then he lied to the public when it was exposed during the election, then he hired a reporter who had asked questions about the affair for a 55K a year environmentalist job she was entirely unqualified to do.
I probably wouldn't post this here if not for the coincidence that the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office published a new report today titled "Prostitution and Drugs in Portland" that reviews the correlation between prostitution, drug arrests and the impact of drug and prostitution free zones. Several pages into the 27-page report I read this sentence about prostitution arrests and it confirmed for me that I would write a post:
"...the crime appears to be one in which older males often seek younger females, for female prostitution arrests were most likely to fall in the 18-25 age group, while male arrests were most likely to occur in the over 45 category."
Predatory is as predatory does. Sam Adams needs to resign.
WWEEK.COM BREAKING NEWS - Published Jan. 19, 2009
http://wweek. com/editorial/3510/12093/
Newly elected Mayor Sam Adams admitted this afternoon that contrary to his earlier denials, he had a sexual relationship in 2005 with Beau Breedlove.
Adams made his comments to WW on Monday at 4 pm as it was preparing to publish a story updating a story from September 2007 about Adams and Breedlove, a legislative intern whom Adams met in 2005 when Breedlove was 17.
In that original story, both insisted their relationship was platonic in 2005. But today, Adams said in a telephone interview from Washington DC that the original story was untrue. He said they had sex after Breedlove turned 18 in June 2005.
Adams says that until now, only he and Breedlove knew the truth.
"Until today I have not discussed the true nature of the relationship with anyone. Not my friends, family, staff or colleagues on the council. I have apologized to Beau Breedlove for asking him to lie for me. I want to apologize to my colleagues for my dishonesty and especially to the people of Portland for my dishonesty. I should have been truthful from the beginning."
The final bit of WW's reporting happened last Thursday night when WW interviewed Adams in his City Hall office and presented him with the evidence that had been compiled over several months.
At that 40-minute interview, Adams again denied a sexual relation with Breedlove.
(clips from the original story that was supposed to run today follow)
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Sixteen months ago, Portland’s news media jumped on a story about a series of 2005 meetings between Adams, then a city commissioner, and Breedlove, then a legislative intern.
The long-ago meetings became a public matter because Pearl District developer Bob Ball, who, like Adams, was considering a mayoral run, raised questions about whether the relationship between Adams and Breedlove was sexual.
Because Breedlove was 17 years old and a minor when he first met Adams, then 42, the corollary question was not just if it happened, but when.
Ball—who, like Adams, is gay—spoke to his then-close friend, City Commissioner Randy Leonard, in August 2007.
In WW’s story (“Mayor’s Race Off to Brutal Beginning,” WWire, Sept. 17, 2007), Adams acknowledged meeting Beau Breedlove during a trip to Salem.
They met again in the spring and early summer of 2005, including a lunch at the downtown Macaroni Grill and a dinner on June 9, 2005, at the Lotus Cafe near City Hall.
Adams had also said that he and a friend drove down to Salem for Breedlove’s 18th birthday party on June 25, 2005.
Adams, now 45, also acknowledged then that his encounters with Breedlove distressed his staff, because they looked inappropriate.
“We made it clear that Sam should be careful,” Adams’ chief of staff Tom Miller told WW in 2007.
At the time, Adams said he was mentoring Breedlove, and both men said their relationship was just platonic. And Adams claimed Ball was engaged in a dirty tricks campaign.
“I have been the target of a nasty smear by a would-be political opponent,” wrote Adams in a Sept. 18, 2007, email released to the public. “I didn’t get into public life to allow my instinct to help others to be snuffed out by fear of sleazy misrepresentations or political manipulation.”
For about 10 days, the story burned bright. Leonard and others publicly sided with Adams.
And what began as an inquiry into potentially predatory and illegal behavior instead became a story about an effort to destroy Adams’ reputation.
THEN THE STORY DISAPPEARED. Ball’s political hopes evaporated, and Adams enjoyed an easy ascension to the mayor’s office after a late challenge from businessman Sho Dozono.
Adams is sticking to his original narrative—that he never had a sexual relationship with Breedlove.
At least five others have come forward to disagree.
“People got this story wrong,” says Mark Merkle, 39, Breedlove’s boyfriend for two years ending in August 2008. “Beau lied. And Sam, not Ball, was the bad guy.”
If Adams lied, his actions unfairly blackened the reputation of one man—Ball—while clearing his own path to the mayor’s office. New information now raises questions about what decisions he may have made—or may continue to make—to keep the truth under wraps.
WW has spoken to three Breedlove acquaintances. All spoke on condition of anonymity. All three say Breedlove told them he had a physical relationship with Adams in 2005, although the men were unsure of whether it began before or after Breedlove turned 18.
Two of them say Breedlove told them about the relationship in early summer of 2005, long before Ball made it an issue. They also say the public explanation both Adams and Breedlove gave the media—that Breedlove was only interested in politics and searching for a mentor—was preposterous.
ON JUNE 5, 2008, Breedlove was working as a waiter at a benefit for the Q Center, a Southeast Portland gathering place for gay youth.
Ball, a Q Center benefactor, attended the event at Cacao, a downtown Portland chocolate shop.
Since publication of the original Breedlove story in September 2007, Ball had largely withdrawn from public life.
During the event, Breedlove, whom Ball says he had never previously met, walked up and introduced himself.
Ball, 42, says he was “stunned” by the encounter, but even more surprised when Breedlove apologized to him.
“I wanted to say I was sorry,” Breedlove said to Ball, according to notes Ball took after the conversation. “I was very isolated and didn’t understand how big this situation was and what was happening,” Ball recalls Breedlove saying.
Ball said he believed Breedlove to be apologizing for having lied about Adams.
“Why else would he apologize to me?” Ball says.
Several recent developments have added to this story. The first happened on Dec. 22, 2008, when Adams hired Portland Mercury City Hall reporter Amy Ruiz to be his adviser on sustainability and strategic planning.
Ruiz, 28, acknowledged in a Jan. 15 interview that she has no experience in sustainability, planning or government.
“This town has a million and a half urban planners, and I’m not one of them,” she says.
Ruiz’s new salary—$55,000—is substantially more than she made at The Mercury. In 2007, Ruiz was one of two Mercury reporters who covered the Breedlove story. The other was Scott Moore.
Now an aide to newly elected U.S. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Vezina declined repeated interview requests from WW, saying only in a brief phone message, “I’m not the bad guy here.”
Moore says he and Ruiz worked closely on the story. At one point, Moore confronted Adams with Vezina’s story, but Adams denied everything.
Ruiz did additional reporting. She spoke with at least one of the Breedlove acquaintances this reporter talked to, and she pursued Breedlove, who refused several invitations to talk. Breedlove finally agreed to meet Ruiz at Higgins restaurant in the spring of 2008.
Ruiz won’t reveal what Breedlove told her, but insists, “Beau never told me they had sex.”
Late last year, Adams hired Ruiz. She says her uncertainty about the Breedlove matter did not diminish her interest in applying for a job in Adams’ office.
At the same time, she says, “That’s a strange unresolved issue to walk into City Hall with.”
Ruiz says she never questioned why Adams chose her for the job over other applicants.
“It never crossed my mind that [Adams] might have hired me to keep me quiet,” she says.
Adams says she earned the position on merit.
“Amy was hired because of her smarts,” he says. “[Her previous reporting] had nothing to do with it.”
Asked what he thought of Ruiz becoming Adams’ aide, Moore, now a spokesman for the advocacy group Our Oregon, offered a terse “No comment.”
***
Merkle adds that in September 2007, when the Ball rumors were circulating and reporters were poking around, he was present when Adams contacted Breedlove to prepare him for media questions.
(Adams has said he was simply trying to arrange a phone call between Breedlove and Mark Wiener, who is Adams’ political consultant, because Breedlove was nervous and had never spoken to reporters before.)
Merkle says the conversation had an additional purpose. He told WW that when Breedlove went to visit Adams, he took Amtrak trains from Salem to Portland.
Adams and Wiener asked whether Breedlove bought train tickets with a credit card.
“I remember Mark [Wiener] and Sam coaching Beau on what to say,” says Merkle, at whose home Breedlove was then living. “Beau told me they were concerned about what kind of paper trail might exist for Beau’s visits to Sam. It was very fishy.”
Wiener confirms he talked to Breedlove but says, “I don’t have any specific recollections of discussing train tickets.”
Merkle says he also recalls Breedlove later explaining his actions at the Q Center event at which Breedlove apologized to Ball.
“Beau felt that he’d kind of ruined Ball’s reputation by drumming up a false story,” Merkle says. “He told me that’s why he apologized to him.”
On Thursday, Jan. 15, at 7:15 pm, Adams sat down for a 40-minute interview with WW in the conference room adjoining his City Hall office.
Accompanied by Ruiz and his spokesman, former Oregonian reporter Wade Nkrumah, Adams was reserved and at times, clearly shaken.
He denied ever having had a sexual relationship with Breedlove, but said they have remained friends and continue to talk and text message each other regularly.
Adams acknowledged receiving two gifts from Breedlove—a vase and a blue dress shirt. And despite earlier warnings from his staff to stay clear of Breedlove, he also acknowledged that Breedlove had been to Adams’ North Portland home after returning to Oregon in November 2007. He has also loaned Breedlove his pickup truck.
When asked why Merkle, Vezina and at least three of Breedlove’s acquaintances believed, based on conversations with Breedlove, that he and Breedlove had sex, Adams declined to offer an opinion.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I wasn’t there for those conversations.”