Statements of Character Witnesses for Joseph L. Puente

To Whom it May Concern,

I have known Joseph Puente professionally and personally for more than three years. He is selfless and generous, always making his talents and abilities available to his community. He runs a non-profit media organization which makes materials, equipment, hardware and services available to all in our community and does it simply for the love of his art. He is constantly involved in different types of fund raising activities for our town, whether it’s the veterans memorial or after school programs for elementary children. While he is passionate about his philosophy and convictions, he is never violent, always preferring to resolve his differences through debate, media, or bureaucratic channels.

(signed)

Jason Quinn

Mt. Pleasant, Ut

To Whom It May Concern:

I first met Joseph Puente when we moved to Manti in January 2005 and began attending the Sanpitch 2nd (Spanish) Branch. My wife and I have worked with Joe at church; have met with him at his apartment and at the Central Utah Filmmakers Association offices. We have always found Joe to be thoughtful, polite, and interesting to talk with.

(signed)

David Hirst

Manti, UT 84642

To Whom It May Concern.

I have known Joe Puente for nearly 2 years. My husband is the Branch President of the Sanpitch 2nd Rama (Spanish Branch) where Joe attends church. I see him each Sunday and, on numerous occasions, at social activities and artistic projects.

I believe Joe to be a very sensitive and gentle man. He is extremely talented and gifted in the arts. He has a genuine concern for others and gives encouragement whenever he can. He has helped our little foster daughter many times with positive reinforcement. He has a quick, friendly smile and is cordial to old and young alike. I have never seen him loose his temper or be unkind to anyone in any way.

Sincerely,

(signed)

Karen Mickelson

Manti, Utah 84642

To Whom It May Concern:

Joe Puente is an honorable and respectable citizen of our great county of Sanpete. He created a patriotic video which helped my sister, Emilee Blackham, establish a service-oriented Miss Sanpete platform. She actually used a similar platform to become Miss Snow. Joe Puente is a long-time friend of the family and he is a wonderful, kind, and respectable individual. It hurts me to see him suffering, and it hurts my whole family to see a vveteran losing some of the basic rights he deserves.

Sincerely,

(signed)

Bradley R. Blackham

Your Honor;

Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of Joe Puente. Before doing so, I ask the Court’s indulgence while I take a moment to introduce myself.

I first came to Sanpete County six years ago to visit my sister, Barbara Peterson. She wanted her children to get to know their uncle better and she also wanted me to see this remarkable valley where she has spent so much of her life. I immediately fell in love with the place: it’s scenic beauty, the sense of history in its towns, and the great feeling of community among its people. This is the mythic America, where people take care of each other and crime is rare. My sister and her husband, Ivo, don’t lock their front door: not because they don’t believe in locks, but because they lost the key years ago. Many of their neighbors can’t be bothered to close their garage doors. Some leave the keys in their cars. Not everyone feels so casual, but in this place freedom from fear is more than a political slogan.

I wanted to live here, and thanks to my brother-in-law’s connections at Snow College I was given the chance to teach classes for several of its departments. I began teaching in late August of 2001, two weeks before the September 11 terrorist attacks. I was able to see how my new neighbors dealt with such threats. Yes, for a few weeks I was likely, when I stopped in the predawn dark, to mail a letter, to find a police officer’s car following me from the post office to school. But in time we all realized that violence is just not part of the fabric of our lives here. Anyone who divulges from this pattern quickly comes to the attention of our manifold social agencies, especially our efficient Sheriff’s Department and the fully socially integrated hierarchy of the L.D.S. Church.

This experience was of more than casual interest to me. Although I teach young people writing and history or art, I used to work in mental health. As a Licensed Psychiatric Technician, I staffed locked wards in California State Mental Hospitals, where I looked after schizophrenics, violent criminals–and their victims, and an occasional murderer. To me, all my interests have one thing in common: how human nature reveals itself through behavior. I don’t associate with violent people, or those whose proclivities, such as alcohol or drugs, are likely to make them violent. Joe Puente is someone I consider a dependable friend, worth the investment of my time.

I met Joe Puente about two years ago, when he and I both volunteered to work on the film of a Shakespeare play that one of my colleagues was making. I quickly learned that volunteer filmmaking and education was the larger part of Joe’s work: like many a true amateur, i.e. someone who loves what he does, Mr. Puente prefers working at what he does, even if to do so means he must scramble for a living. Making a comfortable living is not an option for a filmmaker in Central Utah, and he’s rather be active in his community and work with the young people of the Mt. Pleasant area, and especially Wasatch Academy, than live a more selfish if comfortable life. Mr. Puente’s cameras have recorded many community events in Mt. Pleasant, sometimes for money but often for little more than cost. He has taught teenagers and college professors alike how to make movies, often doing so for free.

Every week, at his own expense, Joe Puente shows wholesome films to all comers at his storefront theater in Mt. Pleasant. The facility is provided to him by Wasatch Academy, an organization we must assume has an interest in looking after the safety and welfare of young people. My children are grown and, in fact, are older than Mr. Puente. But if they were younger, or if they had presented me with grandchildren, I would not hesitate to entrust those children to Mr. Puente’s care. He is, if anything, responsible to a fault. he is avuncular, gentle, genial, funny, and patient. He loves to drop his head, then roll from side to side in a warm, hearty, belly laugh. he’d be the first to admit he has the belly for it. In addition to his self-deflating humor, he is a talented actor who has appeared in several major, so-called “Mormon” films, including the film currently playing in Ephraim: Mobsters and Mormons. Despite the film’s title, I’d like to point out that he plays a pillar of the community. That, your honor, is type casting.

I’ve never seen Joe angry, though he told me once about a time he did lose his temper. Someone for whom he was making a film had been provoking him for day by insulting Joe’s religion – Joe is as devout a Latter Day Saint as I have ever met – and this philistine finally crossed a line by asserting that the name of Joe’s church should be changed to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Perverts. Joe threw down his water bottle and stomped away. When he told me this, he wasn’t bragging. I think his own behavior embarrassed him, but he is human and he can be provoked. What sets him apart is he admits his behavior, even when he disappoints himself. he is not here to tell you what he should have done, or wished he’d done. He’ll be hard on himself.

Your honor, it’s not for me to evaluate the facts in these allegations. That is your task. All I know about the events in question is what I can see in the documents currently before the court. I became aware of how out of control this series of events had become when Mr. Puente was invited to address the combined faculty and student body at Snow College as the guest of Dean Steve Peterson. The event is called “Convocation,” and to give you an idea of the prestige Mr. Puente has at Snow, you might be interested to know that this week’s Convocation guest is Robert Gross, former senior advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs under the Coalition Provisional Authority of Paul Bremer. Mr. Puente did not, of course, discuss his legal problems in public, but he did mention this coming court appearance backstage. That was when I insisted he allow me to speak on his behalf.

Mr. Puente also mentioned his troubles to Dean Peterson. Steve Peterson operates a boy’s ranch in Idaho, and several of his former campers, their lives now salvaged, have become students in my classes. Subsequently, when I mentioned to the Dean that I would be appearing in court today, his eyes sparkled and he asked, “On behalf of Bomber Joe?” Then he chuckled. He knows Mr. Puente, and he knows human nature. When I said I couldn’t understand how anyone could have such trouble with Joe, he replied, speaking of Mr. Puente’s accuser, “She doesn’t like him.”

Your honor, I like Joe Puente. And I know him as well as I know anyone who is not a member of my family. He’s never asked me for privileges, or shown that he expects them. He’s a down-to-earth guy who just wants to be treated fairly, equally. He seems to be the victim of a bureaucratic mistake, followed by a maddening cover-up. But the whole thing has grown out of proportion. False police reports and unsubstantiated allegations are routine events in our culture, but bomb reports and restraining orders are the stuff of life and death today, and not meant to be used as weapons in a personal dispute. There are much deeper issues here than are not being addressed, like the promises we make to our men and women in uniform, and the difficulty we have in keeping them.

Let me close by telling you a brief story about my favorite uncle, a newspaper publisher and a syndicated editorialist who knew John and Robert Kennedy and was a close confidant of President Jimmy Carter. My uncle Mac was a U.S. Marine who personally witnessed the famous flag raising over Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. He later suffered grievous wounds that pained him for the rest of his life. Mac found a lot of things to love about the country he made his sacrifice for, but some things to criticize. One thing that could make his Irish blood boil was the kind of person who pays lip service to the fine young men and women who serve and protect our country in war and peace, but who praise them from a safe distance. He tirelessly used his newspaper pulpit to fight for better pay for police and firemen and for decent treatment for veterans. The idea that a man like Joe Puente, a disabled Navy veteran, would have to come to this court and fight for his right to see a doctor, or have to struggle to be treated with dignity and not contempt by those who never served overseas as he did, would not have surprised my uncle Mac, but it would have saddened him to see a man who wore his county’s uniform demeaned in this way.

Thank you, Your Honor.

(signed)

Geoffrey Wichert

Manti, UT