Skip to main content

Oregon Labor Commissioner Cleans Out Kleins' Family Bank Accounts

Share This article

The Oregon bakers who refused to make a same-sex wedding cake for a lesbian couple say the state of Oregon has confiscated their personal bank accounts.

Aaron and Melissa Klein, who owned Sweet Cakes by Melissa, dropped off a state-ordered check for $136,927 on Monday to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries to compensate for "emotional suffering" to Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer. The Associated Press also reported that the Kleins also paid $7,000 earlier in the month.

Fox News writer Todd Starnes says the Kleins recently told him that Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian wiped out their three family bank accounts, taking close to $7,000.

Starnes reported that Melissa Klein said "it was like my breath was taken away. I panicked. Everything was gone."

In July the state ordered the Kleins to pay more than $135,000 in damages to the Bowman-Cryers. The check this week for close to $137,000 included interest accrued for not paying the state on time.

An attorney for the Kleins says the couple plans to fight the state's decision, even if it means going to the Supreme Court.
   

Share This article

About The Author

CBN
News

CBN News is a national/international, nonprofit news organization that provides programming 24 hours a day by cable, satellite and the Internet. Staffed by a group of acclaimed news professionals, CBN News delivers stories to over a million viewers each day without a specific agenda. With its headquarters in Virginia Beach, Va., CBN News has bureaus in Washington D.C., Jerusalem, and elsewhere around the world. What began as a segment on CBN's flagship program, The 700 Club, in the early 1980s, CBN News has since expanded into a multimedia news organization that offers today's news headlines