WHAT WOULD YOU DO if you learned that the most influential person in the state had committed statutory rape?

Would it matter if he were your friend, your boss or someone you revered?

In May, WW published the story of former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a teenager when he was Portland's mayor in the 1970s (see "The 30-Year Secret," WW, May 12, 2004).

Bernie Giusto says he had no legal or ethical responsibility to report what he heard about Goldschmidt's crime to superiors at the Oregon State Police.

The revelation that for three years Goldschmidt had sex with the daughter of a neighbor and former employee, beginning when the victim was 14, shocked the state.

Nearly as stunning as Goldschmidt's crime was that he'd kept it quiet for three decades, even while a member of President Jimmy Carter's Cabinet, a senior executive at Nike, the governor of Oregon and, finally, the state's consummate power broker for the past 14 years.

It turns out, however, that Goldschmidt's secret wasn't so secret after all.

During the past seven months, WW has established that dozens of Oregonians--many of whom today work at the highest levels of business, government and the media--knew something about Goldschmidt's secret.

Some were friends, some were employees, some were even newspaper editors. To one degree or another, all of them had some knowledge of an almost unthinkable stain on the reputation of a man whose mayoral legacy includes MAX, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the death of the ill-advised Mount Hood Freeway.

When faced with the unthinkable, what did people do? Some say they didn't believe what they heard; others took actions that led nowhere; still others simply did nothing.

None of those named in this story admit they knew about the sexual abuse while it was happening. And, certainly, no single person is responsible for keeping Goldschmidt's secret.

But the three decades of collective silence is a testimony to the sway Goldschmidt, 64, has had over this city. As a leader, he dwarfed those who followed.

Placed almost unfairly high on a pedestal by the media and his supporters, Goldschmidt was so intertwined with Portland's identity that acknowledging, let alone confronting, his crime would be an indictment of more than just him. His success belonged to everyone--and so, in a perverse way, would his failure.

As a consequence, the impulse among those who knew something was often rationalization.

"You could argue that I had an ethical responsibility to do something," says Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto, one of those who knew Goldschmidt's secret. "But other people had better information than I had and never acted."

Nobody from Goldschmidt's mayoral tenure (1972-1979), when the sexual abuse occurred, has admitted he or she knew about it at the time, though it's difficult to believe that for three years a big-city mayor regularly snuck away to the Hilton, to a downtown apartment and to the teenage girl's home without anyone noticing.

There is no shortage of people, however, who say they learned about Goldschmidt's behavior after the fact.

The victim herself, whom WW has called "Susan" to protect her identity, told many people about Goldschmidt, particularly after he finally spurned her.

According to court records and interviews, Goldschmidt began having sex with Susan when she was 14, in 1975, and stopped not long before he left Portland in 1979 to work for Carter, a fellow Democrat.

Soon afterward, his victim's life began a spiral into deep dysfunction that would include a dozen arrests, a brutal rape in Seattle, and a stretch in federal prison.

Susan, now 43, was not always such a tragic figure. A straight-A student and class president in elementary school who had enrolled at Portland's elite St. Mary's Academy, Susan eventually dropped out of high school in her sophomore year.

Although friends say she remained intelligent and beautiful, she struggled throughout her 20s with substance abuse. At downtown spots such as the Dakota and Pink's, both now defunct, and the Virginia Cafe, she hung out with a wide range of people, including dope dealers, barflies, musicians, lawyers and developers. She told many of them her story.

Al Solheim, a real-estate investor who has been called "The Father of the Pearl District," acknowledges that he knew Susan and that she told him in the mid-'80s about her abuse at Goldschmidt's hands. "This was a situation that was very difficult for her," Solheim recalls. "She was distressed."

Solheim believed Susan but was not sure what to do. "I was shocked," he says. "I thought about it for a couple of days. [Goldschmidt] was one of the great political figures of our time, and I knew if it became public it would be devastating."

Rather than approaching Goldschmidt, Solheim contacted a mutual friend, Bob Burtchaell, who had experience as a counselor and was also a private investigator. Burtchaell played basketball with Solheim and Goldschmidt when Goldschmidt was mayor. As WW has reported previously, Burtchaell became the middleman between the governor and Susan, getting her out of jams and mediating between the two of them or diverting her when she demanded to meet Goldschmidt.

Solheim has no regrets about his actions. "I feel OK about what I did," he says. "I don't think ...
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