BishopAccountability.org

Priest at center of hidden camera scandal refuses church order to return

By Emily E. Smith
Oregonian
August 19, 2015

http://www.oregonlive.com/sherwood/index.ssf/2015/08/priest_at_center_of_hidden_camera_scandal_refuses_church_order_to_return.html

St. Francis Catholic Church and St. Francis School are located in Sherwood.

St. Francis School shares a campus with St. Francis Catholic Church in Sherwood.

The St. Francis church and school buildings sit beneath a canopy of pine trees in Sherwood.

St. Francis Catholic Church is located in Sherwood.

Police say a "wall socket hidden camera" was found in the bathroom of St. Francis Catholic Church on April 26.

Ysrael Bien

The Archdiocese of Portland learned that one of its priests had left the country this summer during an investigation into a hidden camera found at his church. The archbishop says he tried to convince the priest to return, but he refused.

Church leaders discovered on July 29 that the Rev. Ysrael Bien was in The Philippines, an archdiocese spokesman said. But they don't know whether the priest, who is now wanted on misdemeanor charges, plans to return.

Acting on new information that linked Bien, 34, to the spy camera, Sherwood police were ready to arrest him on Tuesday.

"Unfortunately, we had no idea that he had left," said Capt. Ty Hanlon. "Not until yesterday did we learn that he was out of the country."

When detectives went to Bien's last known residence in Portland, another priest there told them Bien was gone.

Investigators now believe he left on June 30, six days after he was suspended from leading the congregation at St. Francis Catholic Church.

At that time, Bien was a person of interest but not a suspect in the case, Hanlon said. The department was still pursuing other leads and didn't have the resources to follow the priest, he said.

The archdiocese said police never asked the church to track Bien's whereabouts, and church leaders didn't know he was a person of interest. Spokesman David Renshaw said the church couldn't have stopped Bien's travel anyway.

"The church has no ability to confiscate a priest's passport," Renshaw said. "We are not a law enforcement agency and do not have the authority to take such a document."

Hanlon said police acted as soon as they had probable cause. And that moment came only this week.

The hidden camera whodunit began April 26, when a 15-year-old parishioner discovered the camera affixed to a bathroom wall near a toilet at waist-height. The device was designed to look like an electrical outlet.

Instead of contacting the authorities, court records say, Bien made up an elaborate story about a non-existent police investigation. After the boy's parents continued asking him for updates, Bien weeks later admitted his lie, records say.

He then went to police and reported the hidden camera missing on May 20, prompting an investigation that quickly focused on him, according to court records.

The archdiocese suspended Bien on June 24, "out of an abundance of caution."

At that time, the priest told Archbishop Alexander Sample that he would be living with another priest at a rectory in Portland. After that, the archbishop and other officials tried to reach him by phone but received no response.

About a month later on July 27, Bien replied to an email and said he was with his family, according to the archdiocese.

Bien later called and specified that he was with his family in the Philippines. Bien said he would return after he was reinstated to active ministry, the church said.

Archbishop Sample wrote to Bien on Aug. 6 and asked him to return as soon as he could to be in Portland until the investigation resolved, the church said. Bien said he would not, "citing reasons of his own health and well-being should he return."

Last week, the archbishop directed him to return and assured him anything needed for his health and wellbeing would be here for him in Portland. The archdiocese received no response.

Also last week, a prosecutor reviewing the Sherwood police investigation may have cracked the case.

An affidavit for Bien's arrest warrant filed in Washington County Circuit Court says that Deputy District Attorney Paul Maloney looked up the SpyGuy Security website during his review of the case.

Police said the 15-year-old parishioner's father had sent them a page from the website to show the type of hidden camera his son had seen.

Maloney followed the link to read about the camera and a chat window soliciting customer questions popped up, records say.

"I am wondering what kind of records you keep of the people who order the hidden wall socket camera," Maloney typed into the chat. "We are trying to identify a person who hid one of these in a church bathroom."

The prosecutor didn't identify himself, records show, and the SpyGuy employee didn't reveal any details about specific sales. But Maloney told the employee he was curious about a camera that may have been shipped to someone in Sherwood.

Allen Walton, owner of SpyGuy Security, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that his employee told him about the chat. Searching online, they found news reports detailing the investigation of Ysrael Bien.

Walton contacted a Sherwood detective and said he had information that might help her. He asked her to send him a search warrant, records say.

The search warrant for business records, served Monday, turned up an order form showing that Bien paid $295 for a wall socket hidden camera in March and paid $29.99 for two-day shipping to his home in Sherwood.

This break in the case led police to seek an arrest warrant, which a judge signed Tuesday afternoon.

The priest apparently had been long gone by then.

Bien's long, unpermitted absence from the archdiocese is "contrary" to church law, a spokesman said. The church did not say whether Bien could continue serving as a priest if he were to return.

"We do not know if he will return to the States to either face the criminal charges, or be put in line for a canonical review," Renshaw, the church spokesman, said.

If authorities track Bien down abroad, Hanlon said, it's still unclear whether he could be extradited to Oregon to face the misdemeanor counts of invading privacy, tampering with evidence and initiating a false report.

Contact: esmith@oregonian.com




.


Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.