Roasters founder resigns after 1993 sex offense comes to light

Roasters Coffee founder and owner Wes Heyden fully resigned from any involvement in the company after controversy exploded when it came to light that he was a convicted sex offender.

Heyden took to the Roasters Coffee Facebook page on Tuesday morning apologizing for the lack of transparency about his conviction, thanking employees and the community.

On a now-deleted Twitter page for Resilient Coffee Roasters, which Heyden also owns, he compared the challenges he faced to the Black Lives Matter movement with the hashtag “sex offender lives matter,” mostly referring to juvenile offenders.

Online court records show that while the 42-year-old was indicted in 1996, the crimes happened in 1993 when he was 15. The Josephine County District Attorney’s Office on Monday would not release information about the 24-year-old case that involved one felony and one misdemeanor.

Messages left for Heyden by the Tri-City Herald on Monday and Tuesday were not returned. A man who answered the phone at Resilient’s wholesale office on Monday said Heyden likely would not want to talk.

Passing the baton

Before Heyden’s public announcement, Heyden sent a companywide message on Monday afternoon that said he had no option but to resign immediately, an employee told the Herald. Other employees posted the message publicly on social media.

In that message, Heyden told employees it was a labor of love and that he believed Roasters would be better off without him. Heyden wrote that he would be handing authority over to long-term employees.

In the public message Heyden posted Tuesday, he said that he was turning over the company into the hands of company leaders.

“This will be the first step, of many, in the process of completely removing myself from this company,” he wrote. “I will forever be grateful for the years of support and for the many people that gave Roasters a chance.”

It was unclear whether he planned on retaining ownership.

Heyden founded Roasters Coffee in the Tri-Cities in 2009. He has expanded the coffee empire to have 12 locations in Tri-Cities, one in Walla Walla with three more planned in Airway Heights, Spokane Valley and Yakima, according to Roasters business website.

Many responded to Heyden’s announcement that they will continue to support Heyden and the company.

“As wrong as the conviction is, people do change. A murderer won’t always be a murderer, a thief won’t always be a thief. People can admit their wrongs and change. It’s truly a shame,” wrote one person on Facebook.

“You’ve done a great job building your company. Be proud in the work you have done with every location and every organization and person you have helped along the way,” wrote another.

However, many continued to criticize Heyden, specifically for what he wrote on Twitter.

“But this guy on social media compared the consequences of his chosen sex offender life to the hardships that are felt of living as a Black person, saying that he had it just as hard,” one person wrote on Facebook.

Roasters criticized

Employees organized a protest last Saturday at the Road 68 Roasters site in response to a last-minute work meeting Heyden held earlier in the week.

Employee Cailey Wright told the Herald that Heyden sent out a text to employees with a 2-hour notice saying that anyone who was involved in the Black Lives Matter movement needed to meet with him, and if they didn’t, to pack their stuff and find other work.

Wright told the Herald that Heyden told workers at that meeting he didn’t take a stand on the national movement that has gained significant ground following the Minneapolis police-killing of George Floyd.

Kelly McGrady, a Roasters employee who resigned over the weekend, told the Herald that Heyden waffled on the dress code — which he described as previously being relaxed — telling employees they couldn’t wear clothes supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

Heyden recently made employees sign a dress code update, stating, “No clothing worn (may) include graphics displaying any political, religious or personal biases.”

Both Wright and McGrady told the Herald that Heyden said in the meeting that everyone is racist in their own way, including those involved in the BLM movement.

Wright told the Herald that the protest Saturday wasn’t about forcing the company to take a stand on the movement, but wanting Heyden to have quality leadership.

However, people took to Twitter to criticize Heyden for his treatment of employees. In response to a tweet, Heyden talked about the difficulties he’s had throughout his life as a juvenile offender.

“I can’t vote. I can’t buy a gun. I can’t rent an apartment. I can’t get an SBA loan. I’ve been hated! NO!” said the response on the @resilientcoffee account with the profile name of “Wes.” “If I protest anything it’ll be for reformed sex offenders so they can restore their freedoms that should be open to all people.”

“Just saying, I’ve have [sic] less rights than most. Except I’m white which had its benefits,” he wrote in another response. “What’s worse being beat and profiled by cops, which I have over and over again, or living like you don’t deserve to? Being hated by all ...”

This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 2:23 PM.