A judge outside of Deschutes County will hear a high-profile lawsuit involving Central Oregon’s largest youth soccer club and its former executive director after a local judge called the lawsuit “garbage.”

Deschutes County Circuit Court Judge Wells Ashby ruled Friday that the case will be heard by a visiting judge, Dana Vitolins, who serves Crook and Jefferson counties. The decision arose out of a motion filed May 24 by Bill Buchanan, the lawyer representing Bend FC Timbers.

In the motion, Buchanan alleged that Deschutes County Judge Beth Bagley engaged in improper communications from her personal email account with the lawsuit’s defendant and former Timbers executive director, Tara Bilanski.

Bend FC Timbers initially sued Bilanski, four other Timbers administrators and a coach in 2021 for allegedly conspiring to steal funds and plotting to ruin the soccer club and start their own. Three of the administrators have been dismissed from the case. Criminal charges were also filed against Bilanski and two other administrators in 2022, which resulted in a third-degree criminal mischief conviction for Bilanski. In a third legal battle, Bilanski sued Bend FC Timbers for defamation in 2022, which resulted in a partial dismissal and Bilanski being required to pay Timbers. That decision is currently on appeal.

Ashby didn’t comment on the merits of Buchanan’s motion in court Friday. He merely ruled that the motion, which argued that the Timbers’ ability to receive a fair trail was in question, had been granted.

Emails in evidence

Court filings detailed a string of communications from Bilanski that began with an email in which Bilanski and “her allies discuss a plan to leverage their relationship with Judge Beth Bagley to obtain an unjustified advantage in potential litigation against Bend FC,” the filing said.

Bagley wrote in a Nov. 10, 2021, email to Bilanski: “So I am reaching out to you to let you know that your friends, family, players and their families support you and nothing about this garbage lawsuit will change that.”

In the same email, from her personal account, Bagley went on to call the lawsuit “frivolous” and a “negative PR stunt.”

“Judge Bagley pre-judged the merits of the case and evidenced a strong bias in favor of Bilanski and against Bend FC,” Buchanan wrote in his motion.

Buchanan, who declined to comment outside of what exists in court filings, also wrote in the motion that Bagley could be a potential witness when the case goes to trial in September.

Bagley told The Bulletin in May that what was represented, or alleged, in the motion — that she would influence the case — is “absolutely untrue and false.”

“I have not influenced, or tried to influence, any other judge in this case,” Bagley said.

She said she communicated with Bilanski as a parent talking to a coach rather than a judge speaking to a party to a lawsuit.

Bagley’s daughter was a player at Bend FC Timbers until she switched to play at Apex Futbol Club, which was started by Bilanski, among others, after she was fired. Bilanski is currently the club’s executive director.

Bagley recused herself from the case early on in its proceedings and was disqualified shortly thereafter — about a month after the initial complaint was filed. She is one of four Deschutes County judges who have been disqualified from the case because of their connections to Bend FC Timbers, according to court filings.

Bagley reiterated in an email Thursday, “I have not made any decisions on these cases, will not be doing so in the future, and have not influenced, much less discussed the merits or subject matter of either lawsuit with other judges here.”

On Thursday, Nathan Steele, a Bend lawyer, asked The Bulletin to retract Bagley’s statements from this story on Bagley’s behalf, but not as her formal representative.

‘Judges are human’

Bilanski was the Timbers director for six years before being fired in August 2021, The Bulletin previously reported. The position paid $119,000 annually.

After her departure, she allegedly refused to return her work laptop, and, without authorization, accessed more than “8,000 documents on Bend FC’s information technology systems, including Bend FC trade secrets and other confidential information,” court filings said.

Bilanski’s lawyers argued in court filings that Buchanan was in possession of the communications between Bilanski and Bagley as far back as March 2023, so the only reason for filing in May was to delay trial.

“Because judges are human, there are, without a doubt, cases where they have personal opinions about the merits,” Bilanski’s lawyer Megan Burgess wrote in a June 10 filing.

She added: “However, they can and do put those opinions aside in order to fulfill the primary tenet of their job: to be fair and impartial. In this case, Judge Bagley was disqualified before the case was at issue and has never ruled on any aspect of this case.”

When reached by phone Friday, Burgess declined to comment on the merits of the Timbers motion, but she said she had no issue with a visiting judge being assigned to the case “particularly because it sounds like we’ll hold our trial dates.”

Regardless of the judge, the case “needs to be resolved for everyone involved,” Burgess said.

“That’s the main thing we care about,” she said.

Both Bend FC Timbers, an affiliate of the Portland Timbers soccer club, and Apex FC are members of the Oregon Youth Soccer Association. Timbers registered as a nonprofit in 2005.