Priest pretended to notify police after teen found camera in church bathroom, records say

By Emily E. Smith
Oregonian
July 07, 2015

http://www.oregonlive.com/sherwood/index.ssf/2015/07/priest_pretended_to_notify_police_after_teen_found_camera_in_church_bathroom_records_say.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.

In the 24 days he waited to report that a boy had found a hidden camera in a men's bathroom at his Sherwood church, Father Ysrael Bien pacified parishioners with a tall tale about a nonexistent police investigation, according to court records.

Police believe Bien, 34, was either responsible for the camera or aided and abetted whoever was, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Washington County Circuit Court.

The Catholic priest "is a part of the investigation," Capt. Ty Hanlon said Tuesday, though police have not named him as a suspect.

A 15-year-old boy found the camera April 26 at St. Francis Catholic Church, the affidavit says. He discovered it in a bathroom with a single toilet and a door to the vesting room, where altar servers and the priest prepare for Mass.

The teenager noticed an electrical outlet affixed to the wall at waist-height next to the toilet, the records say. He thought that was a strange place for an outlet, so he pulled it from the wall and brought it to the priest. The fixture appeared to be a disguised camera.

Bien told the boy and his father that he would report the discovery to police, according to the records.

Two days later, the boy's mother contacted Bien and asked if police wanted to talk to her son or take his fingerprints.

He told her that police had visited the parish and they didn't need the boy's statement or fingerprints because the priest had filled them in on everything, records say. Police had a suspect in mind who had used similar devices in other places, he continued. They were gathering more evidence to make an arrest, he said.

He also told the mom that officers said it would have been better if the boy had left the device alone "so they'd have a chance at collecting evidence from it later."

The priest assured her that "a conclusion would happen soon, and that he would be sure to tell them when someone was arrested," records say.

After the parents heard nothing for two weeks, the boy's dad asked the priest for an update on May 10. Bien, according to records, told the dad that he didn't have any new information. The priest also said he'd purposely not informed the church deacon.

This surprised the dad, who had thought the deacon would have been notified immediately. Bien said he would inform the staff at a meeting on May 13.

On May 14, Bien sent the parents a Facebook message with a lengthy update on the fabricated police investigation, the affidavit says.

"Sherwood police did not have enough to go with from the device," the priest wrote. "Two sets of fingerprints were found: mine and, by process of elimination, (your son's). ... They were hoping to find a third set of fingerprints to lead them to the perpetrator. But there was none. Not surprising because they said it is consistent with the modus operandi of the person they have in mind. The device – same style and model – is 'affiliated' with this person. Unfortunately, these are 'circumstantial (sic). Because of insufficient and inconclusive evidence, they are not able to place the person they have in mind in our church bathroom. ...

"Fortunately, however, other police departments are pursuing the same person for another on-going case investigation (I am not sure if it is a crime of a similar nature or different and bigger). Happily, this is where they are confident they are going to get him. So, officially Sherwood police investigation of our incident is over. But other police departments (Tigard or Beaverton, I'm not exactly sure) are currently pursuing the person they think is also our perpetrator ..."

The priest then asked the couple to pray for him because he was having some medical tests done.

"Thanks. See you around," he wrote.

The boy's parents became suspicious.

"The information that Father was offering did not seem to make sense," the dad noted in records.

They doubted that police didn't want to talk to their son. So, records say, on the following Monday the dad asked the deacon for the police report.

The deacon told him he knew little about the incident. After some discussion, they decided the dad should request the police report from Bien and copy the deacon on the email, records say.

The boy's dad emailed Bien on May 19. "I wanted to reach out and request a copy of the police report from Sherwood PD," he wrote. "If you didn't receive a copy of the report, I'll be glad to contact Sherwood PD to request it."

The priest replied a little more than an hour later.

"There is no police report and it is best if I explain this to you in person," Bien wrote.

The boy's dad, the priest and the deacon agreed to meet later that day at 5 p.m., emails show.

"Father informed me that he had lied to me, and that there was no police report or investigation because he had not reported the incident or the device," the dad later told police.

Bien told the dad and investigators that he'd put the device in a drawer in the vesting room, and when he went to get it out later that day, it was gone, according to records.

He hadn't contacted police, he told the dad, because he feared "the consequences of losing the device," records say.

By the end of the meeting, the men agreed that Bien and the deacon would report the camera to police and the Archdiocese of Portland, records say. They decided that Bien would cooperate with the investigation completely and come clean about his lies.

The next day, May 20, Bien and the deacon told the dad they'd followed through with alerting authorities.

Records say an officer responded to the church that day on a suspicious circumstances call. The priest described how the camera was discovered and how he found it missing from the vesting room hours later.

Bien told the officer that the hidden camera had no memory card in it, according to records.

Detective Debbie Smith noted in the search warrant affidavit that some spy-style devices have battery-operated, motion-sensing cameras that either store the images to a memory card or wirelessly through a wifi network. St. Francis has wireless Internet, the detective wrote, and a wifi-enabled camera could have been configured to use the network.

A judge signed search warrants for the church, Bien's home, his car, phones and computers.

The Archdiocese of Portland said Bien was placed on leave June 24, more than a month after church leaders became aware of the incident.

Police said Tuesday they have sent the case to the Washington County District Attorney's Office for review.