Portland mayor’s paramour backs up his denial of underage sex

Published 10:39 pm Thursday, February 5, 2009

PORTLAND, Ore. — Beau Breedlove, the young man at the center of Mayor Sam Adams’ troubles, is speaking out — and backing up Adams’ contention they didn’t have sex until Breedlove was 18.

In an interview with CBS News, Breedlove said the second time they met, Adams was surprised to learn Breedlove was 17.

“He was worried about the perception of our relationship at that time,” Breedlove told Ross Palombo of CBS News.

Still, he and Adams kissed goodbye at the train station, Breedlove says.

“It was a kiss, it caught me off guard, but it was mutual,” said the 21-year-old Breedlove, who is 24 years younger than Adams.

Adams is under investigation by the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, which wants to determine if a sex crime based on age is involved.

Adams threw the city into turmoil with his admission last month that during last year’s election campaign he falsely denied having sex with Breedlove. Adams said he did in 2005, but not until after the younger man had turned 18.

In a separate interview with Portland’s KGW-TV, Breedlove contradicted Adams’ statement last month that he had asked Breedlove to lie for him about having sex.

Adams said at a Jan. 20 news conference in which he apologized to the city: “… Beau encouraged me to be honest about the facts of our relationship. I am deeply sorry that I asked him to lie for me.”

But Breedlove told KGW as far as he could recall, “Sam never told me to lie.”

“I told him it would be best if we were honest,” Breedlove told KGW, adding, “If we don’t tell it now it will come out some other way.”

He told the Portland TV station that when he was 17 he kissed Adams soon after they met — in Adams’ pickup on the way to the train station, at the station and later in a City Hall restroom.

“We didn’t plan sex,” he said, adding that the topic was never even discussed until he was 18.

Breedlove also said, “I never felt like (Adams) was hitting on me.”

There were two sexual encounters at Adams’ house over a weekend in the summer of 2005, he said. Breedlove had turned 18, the age of consent in Oregon, in June.

Breedlove said he had few regrets beyond the division the affair may have caused in Portland’s gay community and the stress it had had on his mother in Salem, “my best friend” and “the most supportive person I know.”

He and Adams now are “just friends” who phone or text message occasionally, he said.

He told KGW he knows he may be questioned during the attorney general’s investigation.

“I have told my story,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”