OREGON
Oregonian

By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com
on August 26, 2014

Two men who say they were molested when they were children in the 1970s by an Oregon youth leader with the Seventh-day Adventist Church are suing for $13.5 million, claiming the church knew the man was a convicted child molester but let him work with children anyway.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, claims the Maryland-based church knew Leslie “Les” Bovee had served two years in prison for molesting at least one boy. Nonetheless, the suit claims, church officials didn’t warn parents in Junction City or Veneta when it placed the ex-con in charge of the Pathfinder Club, a church-sponsored youth activity program.

“The SDA Church made a conscious choice to let a ‘wolf’ guard the ‘flock,’” said Portland attorney Steve Crew, in a news release Tuesday.

Crew’s firm — O’Donnell Clark & Crew…