Making Their List
Did the Portland Police Bureau steer a minor sex abuse victim into a predator’s arms?
Lori Deveny was a distinguished Oregon attorney who held positions of influence and enjoyed an outstanding reputation — right up until she was disbarred in mid-2018, for fraud, forgery, and theft committed against her vulnerable personal injury clients. Despite the magnitude of her crime spree, Deveny likely would have been forgotten about within months, had she not been involved in the sex abuse case against prominent real estate broker and activist Terry Bean.
That case was dismissed in 2015 because Bean’s minor accuser (known in court filings as “M.S.G.”) failed to show up for the criminal trial. Deveny was M.S.G.’s attorney, and negotiated a payoff for him in exchange for his failure to appear. She also stole most of his money.
Notwithstanding the impropriety of such a settlement, a troubling question demands an answer: Exactly how did a personal injury attorney like Lori Deveny come to represent an underage sex abuse victim in an active criminal case?
The answer was discovered in a transcript¹ filed in a related case. Susan Lehman — an advocate in the Sex Crimes Unit of the Portland Police Bureau — gave M.S.G a list of “attorney names to choose from,” for some unknown purpose. M.S.G. has since stated that he “chose the very top person which happened to be Lori Deveny.”
That list was recently obtained directly from the PPB through a public records request.
Upon examination, the list Lehman gave M.S.G was created and modified once on November 13, 2014 — just one day before M.S.G. met with Deveny and signed her retainer agreement, and around the same time that M.S.G. provided testimony about Bean to the grand jury.
Problematically, Deveny’s name at “the very top” was carelessly typed in place of another attorney, Steve Crew.² The hyperlink to Crew’s website is still embedded in Deveny’ name:
Deveny is the only attorney on the list with two phone numbers, her cell phone clearly identified, and without an email address. Deveny’s name is also misspelled, giving the document a hasty and unofficial quality.
Additional details — about Susan Lehman, her list, and her efforts to unite Deveny and the minor — can be found in the “confidential taped statement” which M.S.G. gave to PPB Detective Jeff Myers in January 2019.
Of particular note is that Lehman told M.S.G. “what a great person [Deveny] was” and advised him that he “was supposed to shake hands” with her. Of far greater concern is that M.S.G. apparently didn’t understand — in 2014 or 2019 — precisely what he needed an attorney for, or why he was being steered toward hiring one:
In that same statement given to Detective Myers, M.S.G. also detailed how Lehman accompanied him to Deveny’s office, where the minor signed the lawyer’s retainer agreement.
There is no mention of a parent or guardian accompanying M.S.G. to the lawyer’s office that day, yet Lehman encouraged him to sign a contract authorizing Deveny to represent him for “any claims of injury, death, or property damage” against “all responsible parties” arising from the alleged incident of sexual abuse. For her work, Deveny was to receive one third of any amount that she collected on M.S.G.’s behalf.
Is it the Portland Police Bureau’s usual practice to provide minor sex abuse victims with individually hand-crafted lists of attorneys, escort them to the lawyer’s office of their “choosing,” and then fail to explain what was happening or why they were there?
And does the PPB typically do these things without an adult guardian present to support and inform such a consequential decision?
It’s entirely implausible that what happened to M.S.G. was from any standard police playbook. That means that the Portland Police Bureau deliberately maneuvered the teen into Lori Deveny’s care, through its singular list. It begs the question: Who actually arranged this deal?
The Portland Police Bureau, Susan Lehman, and Lori Deveny/her attorney did not respond to my requests for comments for this story.
¹ The transcript was attached to a declaration filed in the criminal case brought against Bean’s former attorney, Derek Ashton. See Lane County Circuit Court case 19CR71031.
² Attorney Steve Crew’s website (in 2014, via internet archives) shows a specialization in helping child sex abuse victims:
