Mike Bivins, the unrepentant ex-reporter convicted of a string of Portland hate crimes, received mercy from the religious communities he targeted with a punishment that will set him free in a matter of months.
Bivins is expected to serve eight more months in state prison, followed by five years of supervised probation, prosecutors revealed Thursday in front of a packed courtroom.
On paper, Bivins was sentenced to five years behind bars, but that is before credit for time served and good behavior, as well as four months of transitional leave, are factored in.
That is far less than nine years in custody, the maximum punishment allowed by law, but prosecutors said the punishment respected the wishes of congregants and offered the best chance of rehabilitation.
Bivins, 37, has never expressed remorse for the spree, which targeted two Jewish synagogues, a Muslim community center, and a minority-owned business over five days in late May and early April 2022.
No change of heart was forthcoming in the packed courtroom, either, as Bivins interrupted a former trustee from the community center and shouted, “Save your pity for the weak!”
Bivins was admonished by his attorney, and the trustee, Andy Green, continued on by saying that he forgave Bivins.
“I want to invite you, if you are willing, you can pray with us at any time,” he said.
A former Willamette Week freelance writer who covered right-wing protests with a critical eye in the 2010s, Bivins lost contact with the journalism world, took a clerical job at Oregon Health & Science University and was briefly married before spiraling into a pit of conspiracy and hate.
He was caught on video attempting to set fire to the Muslim center using an accelerant, broke windows at two synagogues, spray painted one of them and shattered more glass at Everybody Eats PDX, a now-closed Black-owned restaurant.
Bivins confessed the spree to a television reporter and was arrested days later. He was convicted at trial of 11 counts, including first-degree arson and second-degree bias crime, the legal term for a hate crime, in June.
At sentencing, Michael Z. Cahana, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel, said the temple had just hosted a Holocaust remembrance event the day before they discovered the antisemitic graffiti.
The act left many in the congregation feeling unsafe, he said, and violated one of the founding promises of America: freedom to exercise religious beliefs without interference.
“The actions of Michael Bivins have undermined these promises to the Jewish community of Portland,” the rabbi said. “Its effects will remain with us for many years to come.”
Prosecutor Quinn Zemel noted in a sentencing memo that a family home, whose address was publicly available online to those searching for local Jewish nonprofits, was set ablaze using accelerant on May 6, 2022 — a day before Bivins’ arrest.
Investigators strongly suspected the case was linked to Bivins but were unable to obtain corroborating surveillance footage or cellphone data, according to Zemel.
As terms of the probation, Judge Eric Dahlin ordered Bivins to have no contact with the institutions he victimized, and authorized GPS monitoring, mental health and substance abuse treatment and sensitivity programming, at the discretion of the parole office.
Bivins made only a brief and ambiguous statement before sentencing, saying: “According to the autobiography of Richard Nixon, page 872, it was Robert Kennedy who authorized the first wiretaps on Martin Luther King.”
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, District Attorney Nathan Vasquez said he was “disappointed” by Bivins’ lack of contrition, adding that Bivins may end up serving the full sentence if he breaks the rules once released.
“If he commits any new acts or is doing anything to violate his probation, then we’re going to send him right back,” Vasquez said.