Democrat candidate for Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield has been accused of covering up allegations involving the sexual abuse and harassment of a minor. His former staffer was accused in an ethics complaint of sexually abusing a minor in 2022. Rayfield allegedly failed to report the allegations to law enforcement, a legal requirement under the state's "mandatory reporter" law, which requires elected officials to report such allegations to authorities.

Rayfield was Speaker of the Oregon House and the Director of FuturePAC, a state Democratic political action committee, when his PAC was made aware of his staffer's alleged illicit behavior toward minors, according to evidence submitted in the complaint. However, Rayfield told The Post Millennial in a statement on Friday that he was never made aware of the allegations.

The allegations were first unearthed in earlier October when an ethics complaint filed against state Rep. Janelle Bynum, a current Democratic candidate for Oregon's 5th Congressional District, was made public. According to the complaint, Bynum was notified by a former campaign manager in 2022 that one of her campaign field organizers was accused of sexually abusing a minor volunteer while working on her state House campaign. The complaint accused Bynum of covering up the scandal by failing to report the allegations to police.

Bynum's campaign field organizer was employed by FuturePAC at the time, which Rayfield was the director of. A spokesperson for Rep. Bynum denied the cover-up claims and told reporters that Bynum reported the allegations to the accused's employer, rather than informing authorities.

However, no one from FuturePAC reported the allegations to the police, either.

Screenshots of text messages shown in the complaint reveal that an individual employed by FuturePAC named "Dan" was the first to find social media posts from multiple girls accusing his staffer of requesting sexual intercourse and nude photos from underage victims. The allegations against the staffer were first posted on then-Twitter in 2019.

The screenshot was a text message sent by a FuturePAC employee to Bynum's former campaign manager after the Bynum campaign manager had notified the PAC about allegations that its staffer had sexually abused a minor volunteer, according to the complaint. The communications suggest that FuturePAC conducted at least some sort of an internal investigation into the allegations.

The 2022 text message reads: "As for Collin, I think since Dan found the Twitter posts, it's best we handle telling Janelle."

Screenshot from the complaint

The Post Millennial reached out to Dan Rayfield to confirm if he was the "Dan" named in the text messages. His campaign denied the allegations and told TPM in a statement: "Rep. Rayfield has been a mandatory reporter for more than 18 years and has never failed to meet this obligation - including this situation and his time in the legislature. Rep. Rayfield is not the 'Dan' referenced in the photos of the messages referenced. Rep. Rayfield had never seen the referenced messages until they were brought to his attention after a stranger, who appears to be associated with Oregon Republicans, tagged his account in a Twitter post. Rep. Rayfield never received or was made aware of complaints regarding sexual assault or harassment during the 2022 campaign cycle.

Furthermore, the complaint contains a series of allegations made against the staffer by numerous girls that were published on Twitter in 2019. The staffer was 19 years old at the time. These are the posts that "Dan" with FuturePAC allegedly discovered online.

"I know lots of girls in Vancouver have been harassed by Collin Ledford and usually I wouldn’t do this but now he’s hitting up my 16 year old sister offering to buy her dinner in exchange for sex," a girl named Alex wrote on Twitter. The post included a screenshot of Ledford's Instagram account and a message Alex sent to Ledford asking him to stop contacting her underage sister.

Alex then alleged that Ledford bragged to his sister about requesting nude photos from a 14-year-old girl when he was aged 18. Ledford described the request as "the most illegal thing he's ever done," according to the complaint.

Other girls chimed in on the allegations made against Ledford in the post, claiming that they shared similar experiences. One girl alleged that Ledford "slid into her DM's" when she was 15 years old, knowing that she was underage. Other underage girls said that they were forced to "block" Ledford on social media due to his alleged "stalker" type behaviors, as per the complaint.

It has since been revealed that despite FuturePAC and Oregon Democrats knowing about both the 2019 and 2022 allegations, the accused staffer still has a relationship with FuturePAC and went on to retain employment at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, working for Democratic lawmakers, the complaint stated.

Both Rayfield and Rep. Bynum are required by law to report sexual abuse allegations involving minors to police. Despite Rayfield denying that he knew of the allegations, the evidence submitted in the complaint shows that the nonprofit he directed very well knew of the allegations, suggesting that Rayfield, like Bynum, failed at his duties.

Oregon's "mandatory reporter" law states, "Any public or private official having reasonable cause to believe that any child with whom the official comes in contact has suffered abuse or that any person with whom the official comes in contact has abused a child shall immediately report or cause a report to be made in the manner required."

Dan Rayfield was listed as the Director of FuturePAC from February 2022 to July 2024

Dan Rayfield and Rep. Bynum both denied allegations that they failed at their duties during recent campaign debates. Law enforcement never received reports on the allegations made against the staffer until the complaint was filed, authorities said. Both of their races are competitive toss-ups and current polling shows results could sway in either direction.

Rayfield, a Democratic career politician funded in part by George Soros, is running against hard-on-crime Republican prosecutor Will Lathrop, who has extensive experience prosecuting international sex trafficking and child sex abuse cases. Lathrop, a moderate candidate, is well-respected by both Republicans and Democrats and has a long list of grassroots endorsements, including endorsements from local law enforcement agencies, multiple District Attorney's Offices, and many county commissioners across the state.

During a debate on KOIN News in October, Lathrop said that Rayfield has an alleged history of violating women, claiming that Rayfield has been arrested for allegedly shooting at a car full of women and has defended suspects in court who had been accused of sexually assaulting women. Rayfield did not deny the claims during the debate. This is in addition to the new child sex abuse cover-up claims. 

Rep. Bynum is running against Republican incumbent congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer in Oregon's 5th Congressional District, which is considered the most competitive district in the state. Chavez-DeRemer won her seat by just over one percentage point in 2022, becoming the first Republican to win the congressional district since the 1990s.

The race for Oregon's 5th Congressional District could decide if Republicans maintain control of the House in November. Democrats have poured massive amounts of cash into Bynum's campaign, with the goal of reclaiming the seat.