September 14, 2009
Lord Hate-good and Vanity Fair
(Los Lunas, NM) Friday, our attorney John McCall faxed a letter to Deputy Warden Joe Garcia, asking for an improvement in my father’s prison conditions, including the de-escalation of the “suicide watch” he has been living under. The prison calls this “Constant Watch”, and it entails a number of oppressive conditions including the loss of all writing materials, personal hygiene items, and eye glasses. The inmate is often isolated in a cell without furnishings and made to sleep on the floor without a regular mattress, sometimes without any clothing on at all except underpants. I do not know if, in fact, these are the conditions my father is experiencing at this moment, but over the months I have gleaned these details from experiences my father endured during a previous fast at the prison in Los Lunas.
Attached to John’s letter was a letter from myself to Warden Garcia, suggesting two different mechanisms to facilitate my father’s request to be fed by his family, and not the prison system.
John McCall’s office informed me of the warden’s response, received today by fax. The letter, dated September 11, denied our request for my father’s church family to provide nourishment to him, citing prison policies. The letter was cryptic regarding our concerns about my father’s subjection to “suicide watch,” stating only that “Mental Health providers determined that there was a need” for it — “was” being the operative word that leaves us in a place of reading between the lines again — and not knowing if those conditions are still being imposed at this time.
If my father is following the course he described in his letter, today he has stopped taking all nourishment in the form of juice (if provided), and is now on water only for the next seven days. Next Monday, he will cease taking water, and from that point on will take no food or water until his requirements are met, he is delivered by God, or he retires from this earthly life.
Prison officials are exploring the option of force feeding my father, but I do not see how such a course can be considered sustainable. It certainly has its risks. My father is a frail, elderly man. Intrusive, forceful measures could indeed harm him.
Recently, I have reflected on our perfect string of court losses since my father was arrested in May 2008. This certainly does not reflect poorly upon Sarah Montoya or John McCall. Both are very capable attorneys who have put forth their best efforts. It is not because my father is guilty. There was no one claiming to be a victim of a crime, there were no actual witnesses to a crime, and there was no evidence. Even Judge Baca can be heard on the record, during closing arguments, whispering to the attorneys at the bench, “There’s no evidence to support that there was ever a touching of the breast.”
Listen to Judge Baca’s declaration from the court record.
I cannot understand how these words, whispered by Judge Gerald Baca, could mean anything less than “there is no evidence” in whatever context they might have come from. How he could say these words, and then give my father the sentence that he did, speaks to the manner in which prejudice, malice and vindictiveness took the place of law and fact in his courtroom.
Legally speaking, there certainly was an abundance of “reasonable doubt” in my father’s case, if that is the standard you want to use. During my father’s trial in Taos, attorney Sarah Montoya held up a Barbie doll before the two main witnesses the State was using against my father. This Barbie was wearing a bikini that amply covered all of the areas normally considered “private” or sexual. Sarah asked the witnesses if Wayne Bent touched them under the areas covered by the bikini on the doll. A.S., the witness my father was convicted on for sexual contact, said “No.” Sarah asked A.S. again, “Are you sure?” A.S. replied “Yes.” This event alone should have blown the wheels right off the case.
But it didn’t. To my amazement it continued to roll forward, pushed by a mysterious force I didn’t quite understand or recognize at the time. But my father understood what was happening. During jury deliberations, he motioned for me to come down to the defense table. He told me he would be convicted. God had just told him that. A few hours later, the jury delivered their guilty verdict.
After my father was sentenced to prison, I retained the services of attorney John McCall for the purposes of filing an appeal. Concurrent to the appeal, I asked John to file a motion for an appeal bond, which was heard on May 26th by District Judge Matt Sandoval in Las Vegas. He denied our request. I figured that was going to be par for the course in northern New Mexico, due to publicity and public opinion. I had thought politics would prevent us from getting a fair hearing there, so I asked John to appeal the bond motion to the Court of Appeals.
The entire filing at the Court of Appeals was 150 pages consisting of the motion, the brief, exhibits and affidavits. [Read the brief filed with the NM Court of Appeals - 250k PDF] It took seven weeks of continuous work by John McCall’s office to produce. It detailed all the problems with my father’s trial. It was conclusive, citing both the law and legal precedent, and was extensively supported by affidavits establishing my father’s qualifications for a bond. In late August the Court of Appeals denied our motion “without comment.”
Even though it is their prerogative, denying a motion “without comment” is the Appeals Court equivalent of a slap in the face, in my opinion. I think John McCall was somewhat stunned by their response, having expected a favorable outcome from his substantial effort. Not a single word of explanation was offered for the Court’s decision. When I told my father of the outcome on the bond, he accepted that this would be the status quo with the courts, and that he was now free to proceed on his fast. It was never on his heart to depend on lawyers and courts to vindicate him in this case, but he allowed the process to go on nine long months while I pursued the legal avenue, as it was on my heart to do.
This slap-down by the Appeals Court did not bode well for a fair hearing for my father’s appeal, but there is more. I learned recently that the Attorney General’s office had “stipulated”, or agreed, for the Barbie doll Sarah used in the trial to be submitted to the Appeals Court, along with my father’s appeal. As I understand it, a judge on that court ordered the AG’s office to explain, in writing, why they agreed for the Barbie doll to be submitted, essentially challenging an agreement between my dad’s lawyer and the State. In my opinion this challenge indicates an inappropriate judicial interest of the negative kind in my father’s case. Judges are supposed to passively and impartially adjudicate between parties, and usually don’t take an activist stance when both sides are in agreement. It represents a potential continuation of the spirit we saw manifested in the actions of Judge Baca and the District Attorney’s office.
As I’ve reflected on our perfect string of apparent defeats at the hands of the State, and the ones that possibly lie just before us, I have felt that everything is supposed to be the way it is. Most any cause besides ours would have drawn many more supporters than the numbers we have. Most causes of one kind or another can eke out a legal victory or two, and even gather money and supporters along the way. But very few want their name associated with a Messiah figure who bears the title of “sex offender.” And more than this, a “Messiah sex-offender” figure who disabuses people of their hope in this present world, and has no flattery for anyone. No, very few would want to associate themselves with such a personality. The personal costs would be too much.
As I thought about how the State imprisoned my dad without meeting its burden of proof, and the determination of the state judiciary to keep him where he is, I remembered Christian and Faithful from the allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, in particular the chapter about “Vanity Fair.” Christian and Faithful, traveling through the town of Vanity, refused to buy the wares on sale at the fair, and instead turned their eyes upward. Accosted with the question, “What will ye buy?”, they answered, “We buy the truth.”
Offended that their vanity was not appreciated by these two pilgrims, an offended mob took them before a judge by the name of “Lord Hate-good”, where they were charged with all sorts of high crimes against the “good people” of the realm, namely, offending people and disturbing the peace with their offensive teachings. They were alone in their cause, without friends or defenders. A man named Envy took the stand and testified against Faithful, saying:
My lord, this man, notwithstanding his plausible name, is one of the vilest men in our country; he neither regardeth prince nor people; law nor custom, but doeth all that he can to possess all men with certain of his disloyal notions, which he in the general calls principles of faith and holiness. And in particular, I heard him once myself affirm that Christianity and the customs of our town of Vanity were diametrically opposite and could not be reconciled. By which saying, my lord, he doth at once not only condemn all our laudable doings, but us in the doing of them.
After Envy was done testifying, witness Pickthank said of Faithful:
He hath railed on our noble prince Beelzebub…and hath spoken contemptibly of his honorable friends… Besides, he hath not been afraid to rail on you, my lord, who are now appointed to be his judge, calling you an ungodly villian…
When I read these allegations against Faithful, I thought of my father, Wayne Bent, who was given the name of “Faithful” by God when the Spirit of Messiah entered him in the year 2000. I considered how he has offended the people in the “town” of Vanity by exposing their religions as a fraud, and revealing that heaven costs more than most are willing to pay (which is all of self). He won’t buy any of their wares, and he has consistently warned others not to buy them, either. He fulfilled the parable of the Marriage of the Lamb foretold by Scriptures, offending every earthly mind and self-loving heart.
I then recalled the words of District Attorney Donald Gallegos at my father’s sentencing before Judge Baca, where he said:
A person who has held himself out to be the son of God, to be the Christ, to be the Messiah, has nevertheless, in my opinion, in the few brief blogs that I read, spouted out some very damaging vitriol against other people and made some other statements that I believe were just nothing short of arrogance, including the fact that he doesn’t want anybody to condemn him, but he can condemn everybody else. He wants nothing to do with the government or the State of New Mexico, but then he chose to live in the State of New Mexico.
Mr. Gallegos would have accused Jesus of “arrogance” and “spewing vitriol” after reading his scathing rebukes and judgments from heaven, recorded in Matthew Chapter 23, if Jesus were on trial today. Mr. Gallegos was offended by my father’s disdain for his lies and hypocrisy, and his utter contempt for corrupt State power. Mr. Gallegos “got” the message. Suddenly, this hearing wasn’t about “criminal sexual contact” but about “arrogance and vitriol”, and my father’s claim to be Messiah, and the fact that he “condemns everybody”, including Mr. Gallegos. The issue is the same as it was with Jesus: “The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” John 19:7. The proud feel condemned when their vanity is exposed, and that offense generally turns to hatred and revenge. This spirit of hatred and revenge is what motivated the prosecution of my father, and what strives to keep him where he is today.
In the allegory of The Pilgrim’s Progress, Faithful was condemned to death by Lord Hate-good, and he was killed shortly thereafter. Should we expect any different from Lord Hate-good today? We shall see. But I am feeling that it would be out of character for any worldly judge to deliver a fearless man of integrity so offensive to the corrupt heart, and whose Spirit is so universally hated in this degenerate age as my father’s is.
“Well, Faithful, thou hast faithfully professed
Unto thy Lord, with whom thou shalt be blessed
When faithless ones, with all their vain delights,
Are crying out under their hellish plights:
Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive:
For though they killed thee, thou art yet alive.”
- From The Pilgrim’s Progress
“And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth…and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment….therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.” Isaiah 59
