Accounts conflict on who knew secret (former OR Gov's underage sex abuse)

[Ediacara]

Accounts conflict on who knew secret

Sunday, June 13, 2004
BRENT WALTH and JEFF MAPES

A former confidant of Gov. Ted Kulongoski says he discussed Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of an underage girl with Kulongoski years before the governor named Goldschmidt to run Oregon's university system.

The account by Fred Leonhardt challenges Kulongoski's assertions that he was unaware of the abuse until the day before Goldschmidt publicly revealed it on May 6. The governor has since stated that he never would have chosen Goldschmidt for the higher education job had he known of the abuse.

Kulongoski declined to be interviewed for this story, and his office disputed the account of Leonhardt, who was a speechwriter for Goldschmidt when he was governor from 1987 to 1991.

More at the Oregonian

ON EDIT: changed the title's explanation a little