A clash over money donated to the victims of the MAX train attack came to an end this week as they reached a legal agreement over how to divide roughly a third of $1.6 million raised by supporters.
But donors may never know precisely how the money that caused the thorny dispute is being carved up.
Lawyers for the families of Ricky Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche wrangled for 15 months over nearly $600,000 raised on GoFundMe by a Portland restaurateur after both men were fatally stabbed in 2017.
In a statement provided Friday to The Oregonian/OregonLive, Namkai-Meche's family said the stalemate stretched for so long, in part, because the crowdfunding company does not have policies to address conflicts that may arise among beneficiaries.
"The absence of established protocols for distributing the funds ultimately required that the victims' families decide among themselves how one of the funds should be shared," the statement said.
"This imposed a painful burden that, when reduced to its core, required the families to compare their losses. That is both an impossible and cruel task."
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Best, Namkai-Meche and a third man, Micah Fletcher, tried to intervene when police say Jeremy Christian launched into a racist harangue against two teenage girls, one of them wearing a hijab, riding a MAX train during rush hour in May 2017.
Witnesses and police say Christian plunged a knife into the throats of all three men, killing Best and Namkai-Meche. Fletcher barely survived.
Nearly 35,000 people around the world donated to a series of online fundraisers created for victims of the brutal assault at the Hollywood Transit Center.
Only the money raised by restaurateur Nick Zukin's "Tri Met Heroes" campaign remained contested. The campaign ultimately topped $586,000 from 11,000 donors.
Disagreements over how to distribute the funds emerged almost immediately.
Fletcher, who was also listed as a beneficiary of the crowdfunding campaign, relinquished claims to the money in March, his lawyer Rosemary Brewer told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Erin Olson, a lawyer for the family of Namkai-Meche, a 2016 Reed College graduate had proposed the money be evenly distributed among parties.
But Best family attorney Robert J. Miller argued his clients should receive most of the money because Best, an Army veteran and his household's breadwinner, left behind a wife and four children.
The parties avoided mediation or formulas commonly used after tragedies to distribute funds for almost a year. They sought an independent arbitrator this spring.
Retired Multnomah County judges Dale Koch, Jean Kerr Maurer, and Douglas Beckman helped conduct the arbitration, according to Namkai-Meche's family.
In its statement, the family said the donated money helped pay for his memorial services, travel costs and counseling services, among other expenses.
The family also said GoFundMe pocketed $49,561 in fees from the "Tri Met Heroes" campaign, along with whatever earnings the six-figure fund accrued while the company held it.
Reached by phone, Olson, the family's lawyer, declined to disclose the final sum her clients received from the "Tri Met Heroes" campaign or how they money was ultimately distributed.
Emails to Miller's office were not returned.
- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
skavanaugh@oregonian.com
503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh