Oregon father sentenced to 2 years in prison for drugging his daughter's friends at a sleepover

A Lake Oswego father who said he spiked fruit smoothies with his prescription sedative because he wanted his daughter and her three friends to sleep at a sleepover last summer will spend two years in prison.

Michael Meyden, 57, tearfully apologized and pleaded guilty Monday in Clackamas County Circuit Court to three counts of causing another person to ingest a controlled substance, a felony.

A Clackamas County sheriff's deputy handcuffed Meyden immediately after the hearing as the three victims, all of whom were 12 at the time, stood in the courtroom gallery behind him. He can benefit from a reduced sentence of up to approximately five months if he maintains a clean disciplinary record in prison.

The girls and two of their mothers addressed the court and asked Judge Ann Lininger to impose a longer sentence; Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The girls said Meyden's actions represented an extreme betrayal of trust from which they took months to recover.

The Lake Oswego police investigation has not identified a motive.

One of the girls said Meyden's actions caused lasting damage.

“We were taught that adults are people we can trust, people we can go to when we need help or when we are afraid,” she said. “Yet adults are no longer people I can simply trust. These are the people who scare me and make me think twice: what if they hurt me the same way Mr. Meyden did?

She added: “My life has become hell because of you and your actions. »

Another of the girls said Meyden's daughter was her best friend.

“I trusted him because he was my best friend’s father,” she said through tears. “He abused that trust.”

The third girl looked at Meyden and said, “I am disgusted by the look on your face, by your actions, and by everything you have done. You are horrible and I will always hate you for what you did.

Meyden mixed the smoothies with a sleeping pill, leaving two of the girls sedated and causing them to pass out. One of the girls didn't want to drink and then frantically texted her mother and then a family friend to come pick her up when she became alarmed by Meyden's strange behavior that night .

“You played Russian roulette with my child’s life,” the mother of one of the girls told Meyden. “She's barely 5 feet tall and on a good day weighs 70 pounds soaking wet and you overdosed her.”

She said medical tests showed the level of medication in her child's system was “off the charts.”

“No honest parent feels the need to drug their own child and their friends,” another mother told the court. “No decent parent feels the need to confirm that their children are unconscious. No honest parent lays hands on drugged and unconscious young girls without nefarious intent.

The Oregonian/OregonLive is not naming the parents to protect the victims' privacy.

The girls' parents took them to Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel in Portland the morning after the sleepover, where all three tested positive for benzodiazepines, according to court records and prosecutors.

Medical tests showed that Meyden's daughter also tested positive for the drug, according to Senior Assistant Prosecutor Bryan Brock.

Meyden told the court his plan for a fun and memorable sleepover failed when his daughter and her three friends did not go to sleep at 11 p.m., as he had insisted.

He said he wanted the girls in bed by 10:30 p.m. and asleep within 30 minutes. He said he wanted them to be well rested for the next day.

Meyden said he “just wanted them to go to bed” so he could fall asleep.

“I was too obsessed with them going to bed, yeah, that’s true,” he said.

He said he accepted responsibility for his actions.

“My whole life is destroyed,” he told the court. “Everything that was important to me until then has disappeared. »

Lininger addressed Meyden directly, telling him he had “created enormous damage through your decisions.”

“I hear you express shame and remorse and I think those are genuine,” she said. “I think you have created a lot of pain and you rightly see that your own family is suffering a lot.”

She said she would honor the deal Meyden made with prosecutors, calling it a “significant sentence.”

“This is a responsibility that you have earned through terrible and dangerous choices that you have made, but this is not the last thing that happens in your life,” the judge said. “You have decades and decades of life ahead of you where you may have the opportunity to show your children how a person recovers from terrible choices.”

Lininger also praised the girls as “strong, articulate young women who experienced unfathomable injustice.”

“You came here today and you explained to the courtroom, to the community and to Mr. Meyden the impact on you and how you did not deserve this conduct,” Lininger said. “You are young people who are not afraid to demand justice and who want justice to be done to others. »

During a search of the home, investigators seized computer equipment, a Vitamix blender, an immersion blender, reusable straws, a mortar and pestle and bottles of a sedative called Temazepam, according to court records.

Temazepam is a benzodiazepine used to treat insomnia and anxiety and, according to medical experts, can cause excessive drowsiness, loss of consciousness and obstruct the airways.

According to court records, Meyden insisted the girls drink the smoothies; however, one did not do so and was able to provide police with an account of what happened next.

She described how Meyden returned to the basement while the other girls were sleeping and moved her arm, then one of the other girl's bodies. She told police she stayed awake out of fear that Meyden would harm her friend, according to court filings. At one point, she said she saw Meyden place a finger under her friend's nose to see if she was sleeping and pass his hand in front of her face.

Terrified, the girl repeatedly texted and called her parents, begging them to come pick her up: “Mom, please come pick me up and say I have a family emergency. I don't feel safe. I may not respond, but please come get me (crying emoji), please. Please pick up. Please. PLEASE!!” She then called and texted several friends asking them to take her.

A family friend drove her home; she woke up her parents who woke up the other girls' parents. They picked up the other two girls still at Meyden's house, according to court records.

— Noelle Crombie is a business journalist specializing in the justice system. Contact her at 503-276-7184; ncrombie@oregonian.

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