Incredible reporting, Syd. Edit needed, perhaps, on this sentence: “I can reassure you that whatever you told you is correct,” the counselor said. Good work, kid.

Thank you for writing this.

Jesus.

I don't trust religious people (any) and especially religious conversions.

now i'm really confused - I thought it was "attack the accuser" time?

Sorry Ed, you have to pick one of the following:

A) Shady tweekers with long rap sheets are literally saints and we should welcome them with open arms when they move into large encampments across the street from our houses/apartments.

B) Shady tweekers with long rap sheets are terrible people who obviously cannot be trusted.

"I"m not lying" says the man with a documented history of lying. Yup, he's credible.

Great article. Thank you.

9

now now, don't be catty.
hizzoner deserves the benefit of the doubt, despite his past, don't you think?

Jeff made some serious tactical errors that affect the extent to which The Left will embrace his story.
For starters he might have tried getting pass-out drunk before getting raped.
That, and getting raped on a college campus would have helped a lot, too.

Powerful story. May justice prevail, wherever it leads.

@7 - Spot on.

Are people in this city insane? Can anything happen here? Drug abuse, child molesting, child abduction, murder and assualts and are all okay as long as you are white and have a so called good reputation? That police let child molestation and sexual assualt/ forced trafficking of minors go without charges says a lot about this area. If having two Portland mayors wasn't enough to convince people that the Northwest is a place where the unholy exploitation of children thrives, then having a mayor up the road accused of even worse charges of sexual exploitation and rape of children should! That would be a total of three mayors from the NorthWest who are known child molesters. I hope that people do not forget the fact that this child trafficker worked as a District Attorney in good old Multnomah court. I'm sure many people of lesser crimes were prosecuted by Ed Murray, the child trafficker. That's justice for you. How the court system was meant to be? Can anything happen here such as drug abuse, child molesting, child abduction, murder, assualts and its all okay as long as you are white and have a so called good reputation. That police let child molestation and sexual assualt/ prostitution of minors go without charges says a lot about this area. If having two Portland mayors wasn't enough to convince people that the Northwest is a place where the unholy exploitation of children thrives, then having a mayor up the road accused of even worse charges of sexual exploitation and rape of children should! As of now the NorthWest has officially claimed its Name as a place for inhumane exploitation and sexual assualt/rape of children! If it wasn't for the Mercury there wouldn't even be indebth reporting of this nightmare story. Portland is one publication away from not even have stories like this reported on.

I cant express the sorrow I feel for what Jeff Simpson is has gone through and will continue to deal with. His pain is our pain. His nightmares are all of our nightmares.
To speak out on this issue at all, let alone so publicly has to be so difficult.

I wish Jeff Simpson the best with this issue and all the other difficulties that people encounter

"Last Wednesday night, I received the shock of my life"
He's been accused several times before but this time was the shock of his life?
Did I miss where he denied knowing the victim(s) or denied sharing his home with teenaged boys? I have to ask, what kind of adult man invites a teenage runaway drug addict to sleep over in his apartment?

You are going places Sydney. This is very good reporting, a really good piece..

Dear Mayor Murray,

When multiple people independently accuse you of the same illegal act, with no prior knowledge of the others' accusations, it sure looks as though you're guilty.

You can tarnish the reputations of your accusers all you want. You can claim that the motivations are political all you want. You can invoke a vast right wing conspiracy all you want. It doesn't add up. I saw an interview with Jeff Simpson on KIRO last night, and he has more credibility than you do.

It is time for you to resign for the good of the city.

Also, it's a bunch of crap that the Stranger removed comments from the mayor's editorial itself.

Interesting how Sydney deletes comments that don't fit her point of view.

@18

Did I miss where he denied knowing the victim(s) or denied sharing his home with teenaged boys? I have to ask, what kind of adult man invites a teenage runaway drug addict to sleep over in his apartment?

I would answer your question (from my point of view), but according to Sydney Brownstone, if your views differ from hers, they aren’t valid and subject to deletion...

Has no one pointed out that the 4th Step of 12 Step recovery is not "take inventory of the people who have hurt you", but rather "Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"? None of the steps are about blaming or confronting others for having hurt you -- they're all about taking personal responsibility for your own actions.

Regardless of whether or not you think that's the best approach to recovery, it's in direct contradiction to what Mr. Simpson claims is his motivation for this lawsuit.

Between the "LincolnLawer"'s comments advocating for the current accuser under articles in "The Stranger," this piece on a former accuser, and then the mayor's own Guest Editorial here, I feel like I'm witnessing a hole being torn open in the extra-judicial space-time continuum. What a mess. Where's Seattle's 2017 Atticus Finch?

The standard of determining guilt or innocence in a criminal trial ARE not the standards each and everyone of us uses to determine the integrity and character of fellow human beings. We actually have a moral and ethical obligation to hold people in authority to higher standard than others. Likewise we have a LOWER threshold in judgment of their suitability. 

Society certainly does not have an obligation to judge leaders by process of a criminal trial. Nor a civil case.To do that would be dangerous insanity.

As Mayor you need to answer to the press. This is not a private matter, the public needs confidence that inquiry can be made and WE can gauge your honesty in the matter.

Staging a paid advocate to shield you from questions and utilizing the editorial section in a booster publication to push your story is inadequate.

The city council, afraid of the consequences if you are truly innocent, has passed the buck to a civil case that is tangential to the court of public opinion. We need to have confidence in your character. Because of the city council's cowardice the press needs access to question the veracity of your story. Grant the press access or resign.

D.H.'s motivations are, indeed, incidentally political: he doesn't think a dishonest, child molesting, conspiracy theorist should be in a high position of power. And what's wrong with that exactly? The Mayor could have used this as an honest platform to discuss the challenges associated with evolutions in sexuality. What he did back then would still be very wrong, but at least the public conversation honest and potentially productive. This man is an embarrassment and is now re-victimizing my client. Maybe he can find work in the Trump Admin spin room when Sean Spicer resigns.

News Flash! LincolnLawyer's client now says one testicle hangs lower than the other!

Thank you Sydney for writing this article. It was a fair interview that acknowledged a person and gave a victim as a 13 year old a voice.
Jeff Simpson's wife and son should be very proud of his him.

I do not see how Ed Murray in his upcoming deposition will be able to counter the statements of three men. Try as I might, I do not want to recognize or call him Mayor.

Ken Hutcherson is part of this mess, which should immediately make everyone question Simpson's credibility. Hutcherson would literally do anything to advance an anti-LGBTQ agenda. This is a shit sandwich of a situation, because on the one hand nobody wants to discount the victim, but on the other hand the victim isn't exactly someone anyone should be taking at face value. Add Hutcherson into this mess and I think it's enough to make me believe that this is a political attack.

Echoing #19's response. Seattle needs more journalism of this caliber. Much more.

Great article Sydney. You and your colleagues are doing a great job of reporting on this story as it unfolds.

#16 No one reads long winded posts.

#36 Show us a pic of the real dorky, not 20 yrs. ago.

@25, @34:

Simpson seems to have a number of right-wing Christians egging him on, does he not? Churches in rural Oregon are not known for tolerating sexual diversity, and Simpson's claim that he did not know Hutcherson had a rabidly anti-gay agenda simply beggars belief.

"After Simpson finished telling his story to the Seattle Times reporters, Janice Simpson gave him a 12-step Celebrate Recovery coin. To her, he had not only completed the fourth step, but had done the entire program in one night."

Such incredibly dishonest manipulation from someone he loves and trusts, and whose approval he wants. Whether his accusations against Murray have any substance or not, we can certainly feel for a person who is so easily amenable to being used by others.