Sentencing for Wayne Bent, part one
Sentencing, part one - December 30, 2008. Remarks by District Attorney, Donald Gallegos, plus statement by ex-member, Prudence Welch.
Judge Baca: At eight thirty-nine A.M., in the matter entitled State of New Mexico Plaintiff versus Wayne Bent, Defendant; this is Union County Cause Number CR200825. Let me have appearances by counsel.
Donald Gallegos: Donald Gallegos and Tomas Benevidez for the State, your honor.
Judge Baca: Welcome.
Ms. Montoya: Sarah Montoya, appearing on behalf of defendant, Wayne Bent, who is present in person.
Judge Baca: Ok. And welcome. The purpose for this hearing this morning is a sentencing hearing, following a conviction after jury trial and the Grand Jury Indictment, filed here on May twentieth, two thousand eight.
Alright. I’ll inform the parties that I did receive the Pre-sentence Report, late yesterday afternoon. And I read it, as well as the Sentencing Memorandum, prepared by the Defense and the attachments, thereto. And I read that entirely as well. Alright.
Ms. Montoya: Your honor.
Judge Baca: Yes ma’am.
Ms. Montoya: I have an oral motion to bring before the Court.
Judge Baca: Alright.
Ms. Montoya: For entry of judgment, notwithstanding the verdict, we’re asking the court to set aside the jury conviction of count two. We do not believe the evidence at trial supports that conviction. The testimony of both of the females was that Mr. Bent did not touch their intimate private parts. We used a model and asked the girls in question whether or not he touched their intimate private parts. Both of the girls' stated, "He did not." With particularity, A.S. also, which he was convicted on count two, indicated that she was not touched. The law requires that the intimate private parts of the body be touched in order for a conviction to lie and we’re asking for the Court to set aside the verdict as to count two.
Judge Baca: Alright, thank you. Response by the State?
Donald Gallegos: Briefly, your honor, I don’t believe that there is grounds to grant the motion. The jury heard the evidence and I think what’s even more telling in this case was, it's not Ms. Montoya’s or Mr. Bent’s or even my opinion as to what is the intimate part. It was A.S.’s opinion as to what the intimate part was. She was on the witness stand, she was subject to cross examination, quite thoroughly, I understand. And I’m not going to refer to the count against L.S., since that was an acquittal. And the other thing, as the court is aware, pursuant to the State versus Gardener, the State versus Trevino and other cases, is, the jury is still allowed to infer from circumstances, such as whether there was a hugging or whether there was a touching, whether that was in the intimate area or not. So, I don’t believe any grounds have been shown and I would ask the Court to deny the motion.
Judge Baca: Alright. Ms. Montoya, any last words on that?
Ms. Montoya: No, your honor.
Judge Baca: Alright, at this point I have actually thought about that, prior to the raising of the motion and at the close of the evidence and the Motion for Directed Verdict. I looked at the sufficiency of the evidence and I felt that it was sufficient to allow the jury to consider, although the victim, the alleged victim, in the matter had said that she was not touched in the intimate parts of her body. The description provided, allowed the jury to make that inference. And, as finders of fact, they were permitted to decide whether or not in their understanding and their..., under the instruction they were given by this Court, whether or not there was a touching that was contrary to law. And I think there was sufficient evidence for them to determine either, "Yes," or "No." And they are the fact finders. And at this point in time, the fact finders have made their decision and I will not set that aside at this point. Alright. So you’ve made your record.
Alright. Are we ready to proceed with sentencing?
Donald Gallegos: Yes, your honor.
Judge Baca: Alright and the State has the floor.
Donald Gallegos: Your honor, if I may ask just a preliminary manner of how the Court wishes to do this? Generally, it’s make a recommendation, speak a little bit about why we’re recommending this as such, and then to allow one or more persons to speak. I know the court may be interested in time constraints. I do know that I have one person who wants to speak, has told me she’d take five to six minutes, no longer than that. I should probably have my comments probably right around the same, five minutes or not.
Judge Baca: Alright. The parties should know that I have set aside about two hours for this.
Donald Gallegos: Oh, ok.
Judge Baca: So I think we have plenty of time.
Donald Gallegos: I don’t know that it’ll get that far from the State’s side your honor.
Judge Baca: Ok, alright.
Donald Gallegos: Does the Court prefer me to make the recommendations and then sit down and then come back and talk or just...?
Judge Baca: Whatever you’d prefer, however you’d like to...
Donald Gallegos: Just take off... Alright. Thank you, your honor. First of all, if I may, with the Court’s indulgence, I want to thank this court, I want to thank Ms. Montoya and others, I understand who sent their thoughts my way, on the situation with my mom. I’m happy to report that she is, surgery went well. She’s undergoing rehab right now. She’s walking on the hip with the walker, but she still has a long ways to go and so, I really do sincerely appreciate that. I know in the heat of battle sometimes things get crazy but I don’t believe that anyone in this courtroom lost their human touch, and so I sincerely appreciate that.
Judge Baca: You’re welcome.
Donald Gallegos: Your honor, I want to discuss real briefly how this matter came about and why it came to where we are to date. I think it, there’s a lot of holes that can be filled in. I know the media has covered what they can. I know that Ms. Montoya has covered what she can in defending her client, which she has done well, which she has done with zeal, and which she has done according to her oath.
Your honor, when this case first broke, we met initially with CYFD. There was concern, initially, not so much about L.S. or A.S.. At that time, we were looking, I believe, at Willow and maybe one of the other juveniles that were there. As things progressed, of course, we had information regarding both of the two young ladies that were the subject of this particular case. Based on their Safe Room interview and other conversations that were had, we came to a charging decision about regarding two of the females. The third one, we, initially, I believe, may have considered, but did not take to the Grand Jury, because there was just too much grey area there. And as prosecutors, of course, we are obligated to not only charge cases that we know is supported by probable cause, but we have to charge cases that we know we can take to a jury with a reasonable likelihood of a verdict. And so that went into the initial charging decisions.
Now regarding L.S., which is always problematic because she has expressed her feelings for the defendant in this case, and in my meeting with her, at least a couple of times, very long meetings, what I can say about her is she’s a very intelligent. One of the things I’ll remember about this case is meeting her, discussing things, about the case, and not about the case and what a smart, energetic person she is and how deeply she believes in what she believes.
I understood initially, your honor, that it was a possibility that we would have some jury nullification, which happens. That’s part of the system. And I believe did happen here. Initially, though, I thought that it was the strongest count that we had to pursue, just based on the stories that the defendant was naked and she was also naked and at some point, he either laid on top of her or had given her a hug. We never really so much focused on the chest touching, if you will, even though that was a concern, because of the size of L.S. She’s tiny, the defendant’s hands are quite large and you know, one could argue to a jury, "Well, just put those two things together." I was more concerning number one though, was that, her consistent story was that he had at least hugged her. And in reading the case law, as the court is very aware, the jury is allowed to draw those inferences. Sometime ago the State of New Mexico, like every other state in the country, decided to give more protections to our children because of the vulnerability, because of the fact that they’re not so wise to the ways of the world. I’m not going to say they’re not smarter. They’re some very smart young people out there, but haven’t been exposed to a lot of things that this world can offer and which I believe the defendant and his followers have chose to retreat from, wisely or not. That’s their thing, I respect that. But the State, being governed by the majority, has passed laws that says, children are afforded special protection. And as part of that special protection, what distinguishes Criminal Sexual Contact of a Minor from Criminal Sexual Contact of an Adult is, if you want to have a conviction of touching on an adult, you have to show that it was done for sexual gratification. If you touch a minor, because of their, the legal implications of them not being fully able to consent to the touch, if they did, then that’s a whole different standard. And we’ve seen the cases that have interpreted it that way.
That was what went into the screening and the decisions to pursue this case the way we did. I will let the court know that even had we not had the evidence, or were not confident about the evidence of the touching itself, we still would have pursued on the Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, as the court is fully aware. At the point, and our argument has always been, at the point where these young women, these young ladies came to this older person’s room and said, "I wanna get naked," that is where the law dictates that he knew, or should have known, it was wrong, it was illegal, it was against the law. And a reasonable person would have, or should have, said, “No, you’re not gonna do that. You’re gonna get dressed. Or, "You’re not going to get undressed, and I’m going to call your parents.” You know, there’s a lot of talk about whether that was done or whether it was attempted, but in the end it was admitted that that is what happened.
And, of course, Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor doesn’t mean the kid goes out and commits an act. It, as the instructions, and I think you spent some torturous time on jury instructions, that it could be either, tend or encourage them, or cause them to act in a way that is dangerous to their health, safety, welfare, morals, and those kinds of things.
So, I thought it was really important to bring a little bit of the analysis out, your honor, because there was a lot of media going on about, "This wasn’t a sexual touching. This wasn’t done for sexual gratification." And as the court is very aware, a prosecutor, unlike almost any other attorney, is held to strict restrictions about discussing aspects of the prosecution. Now, we can talk about procedural history. We can talk about some of the who, what, where, when, maybe not the why, but we cannot talk about legal analysis, we cannot talk about any of those other things. On the other hand, the defense is free to do so. And we’re quite liberal in doing that. And so that’s why, I believe some of these prefacing comments, I think, are appropriate.
I will ask the court to take note of A.S.’s particular role in this case. In the beginning, she wanted to be one of the virgins, and she approached with that in mind. And her statement later was, “When I understood that consummation was going to be involved, that’s when I started getting these weird thoughts. That’s when I started getting suicidal thoughts. And that’s when I became damaged goods..." in the eyes of this defendant. And what did he do? He chased her out of the compound. He says, "It's better that you leave." Because she was not, it was apparent to him that she was not going to be so compliant. She was not gonna be so held under the sway of this person with which held himself out to be the Son of God or the Messiah.
I want to speak real quick about that, because, contrary to what the defense has maintained all along, this was never about religion for the State. It never was. The First Amendment is a very precious amendment, your honor. And the freedom to practice our religions is one that our ancestors have fought for and have defended over the centuries, and should still be till the end of time, in my opinion. However, our courts have also recognized that that should be balanced with a compelling government interest. For example, our neighbors to the northwest, if you will, in Utah, decided that polygamy was part of their religion, and they practiced it. And at some point in time, the United States government says, you know, Freedom of Religion doesn’t go that far. This is violating something else, that we feel that we have a government, compelling government interest, in compelling, or in protecting.
And so, you can practice your religion, but it cannot break the law. For example, much as I disagree and will disagree with a person’s right to worship Satan, we do have an active Church of Satan in the United States. One of the tenents of The Church of Satan is human sacrifice, certainly against the law. I can respect them. I can say, "They can practice their religion all they want. Keep it out of my way." You know, I’ll let them by, but do not practice the act of human sacrifice. Likewise, do not practice the act of polygamy. And so, those things, your honor, were never an analysis of the State. We never, I know, there’s...I know what propaganda is. You know, I’ve been accused of it myself and probably guilty of it. I have ran in three elections, your honor, so it’s, you know, but that was never a consideration here. And so, I just wanna put that out the window, because that’s really where it belongs.
What was a consideration here and the main driving force all the time, and even contrary to the defendant’s words, himself, who said, “My job was to convict.” I spent many hours talking with L.S. and I told her, “My job is not to convict this person.” A prosecutor’s job is not to convict. Our job is to take the evidence, to seek the truth, to seek justice and let a jury decide. And in this case, the jury said what the reasonable person’s standard were. And the jury said, looked at the evidence, considered it, and rendered their verdict. That is our job. It was not to convict this defendant. And in fact, had the jury acquitted him we’d have said, "Ok. The jury did their job and now we’re moving on to the next." Because, you know, our drawers are full of files. We didn’t set out to track him down. We didn’t set out to even go, as far as I know, I didn’t even know he was living in the north part of my county, until somebody told me about the National Geographic special. And even then, I was like, "Ok, Somebody wants to escape the crazy maddening rat race of the world, let them do so." Lord knows, I’d like to do that. I go fishing or hunting. But if they want to have their own little community out there, where they’re not hurting anybody, where they’re practicing what they believe, fine. The problem is they crossed the line and they did hurt somebody. And it came to law enforcement’s attention. And that’s why we’re here today.
Your honor, I wanna, probably ask the Court’s permission to have Prudence Welch make a few more statements and then I’ll. I guess it will work better then, then finish up with my recommendations at that time.
Judge Baca: Alright.
Donald Gallegos: So thank you, your honor.
Judge Baca: Good morning, please state your name for us.
Prudence Welch: Prudence Welch.
Judge Baca: Ok, and let me ask you to speak up so that we can hear you, especially so I can hear you.
Prudence Welch: Ok.
Judge Baca: Alright, what do you have to say?
Prudence Welch: I just want to say that Mr. Bent has molested the hearts and minds of many people. And he has emotionally hurt many. And he would plant seeds in people’s minds to get them to do things on their own, so that he could say they did it on their own. And this laying naked thing was one of them. And they had a deadline and Mr. Bent has taught all of us that you reap what you sow and nothing happens to you that you didn’t create. And so I just want to say that he has sowed some things that now he’s reaping. And molesting hearts and minds isn’t a crime, but it is very emotionally damaging forever. And I’ve watched several people go through emotional trauma and I just want to say that justice has been served.
Judge Baca: Alright. Anything else?
Prudence Welch: That’s all.
Judge Baca: Alright. Thank you for your statement. Mr. Gallegos?
Donald Gallegos: Thank you your honor. A few more comments, with the court’s patience.
Judge Baca: Certainly.
Donald Gallegos: Pursuant to the Victim’s Rights Act, the court is aware that the victims do have a right to make a statement. A.S., we have spoken to, is really someone who’s concerned about getting on with her life. She didn’t want to speak. But, of course, she did want the court to know, and it came out in her testimony, about how she felt. She had trusted this person and I think, if the court remembers, the theme of the whole trial was violating trust. That that was one of the biggest things that really impacted her and it got her to the point where she felt she was worthless, useless, and, in her words, that she, "was gonna go to hell," because she, "did not find favor in the eyes of the person who she believed was the Son of God." And so that, your honor, is both the psychological, emotional and maybe even a physical disability that she’s gonna have to deal with for awhile. I guess, thankfully, we can look at one thing, she is young and she has gone through counseling and, hopefully, she will get on. I know there may be some comments made; I don’t know, we did have some hearings about what kind of evidence would get in or not and maybe the defense may get up and say, “Don’t feel sorry for A.S. because she’s over there showing herself all over the place on My Space and everywhere else.” Well, your honor, consider this, a lifetime of living in a sheltered community where you’re not allowed to watch TV. You’re not even allowed to have a pet. Where you do what’s suggested to you. And it’s very interesting. It’s very brilliant and if you look at, and I’ve just, I’m not an expert by any means and that’s why we brought in Dr. Melton. But I have done some reading and I did look at a documentary or two at some of the patterns that seem to overlap. What they used to call, mind control, what they used to call brain washing, what may now be called socializing, the power of suggestion, especially amongst the very, very young. And if you look at A.S. and L.S.'s parents, they were very young when they were in this church also. So now, they’re bringing up two daughters in this church who have known nothing else. L.S. won’t, probably know anything else. She’s made it very clear that her decision is, once she turns eighteen or pursues an emancipation, she’ll go back to the land. And you know that’s... I wish her the very, very best. I count myself in some certain ways, blessed, that I met these young ladies because we’ve had some very interesting conversations and I wish both of them the best.
The other violation of trust, your honor, is the parent’s violations of trust. They left these two daughters with this defendant and his followers, hoping they were going to be safe and not subjected to this type of behavior. And I know the Court sat here and listened when the father John was still confused to this day and he still is, about whether he should have left them, whether he shouldn’t have. Elsa, on the other hand, is very very clear. "My daughters were never allowed. I never gave permission for them to disrobe in front of this man. And more than that, there’s no way I would ever have consented to a consummation." And we know what a consummation is your honor. It’s sexual intercourse, as explained, not only by the children, but by the defendant himself. Eventually, that was what was going to happen. Whether we agree with how they practiced their religion or not, your honor, and whether it's adults or consenting adults, which it happens to be, when it comes to the children, we have to stand up and we have to fight and that’s one thing I’m proud to say that law enforcement in the state did do. And we’ll never regret that.
L.S., your honor, has, and I spoke with her again this morning, does not want to say anything. I think she let the court know and I will, again, just reiterate of her feelings towards the defendant. She hasn’t changed. She won’t change for those. I respect them and I know the court does too. And so I’m not sure what else to say about that.
It was important that Prudence Welch came to speak very briefly to the court because she was a member of this. And she was one of the persons to later on realized that the controlling nature of this type of an organization, if you will, or this community, for lack of a better word. It’s small, it’s sheltered. And what’s interesting about the dynamics is it’s tightly controlled without being tightly controlled. There are no storm troopers. There are no shepherds, if you will, literally, you know, pushing, pulling people here and there. What it is, is constant bombardment of information and you can only get your information here because, "I am the source, I am the Son of God and if you don’t do what I say there’s only one consequence." And so when you’re confronted with that type of simplistic type of thinking, your honor, well then you’re thinking, "I either follow, I either do, or I’m condemned." And we saw it in A.S. We saw it very very clear.
I wanna finish off finally your honor by the few times that I did bother and I intentionally stayed away from the blog. I intentionally stayed away from the updates that were going on. People were telling me what was being written and stuff and my job and my habit as a prosecutor has always been to focus on the case and not get involved. But the few times I did read, I was struck but what I wanna I guess the Presentence Report refers to it as some type of a megalomania. I call it arrogance that I have seen. And this is where the Court is probably gonna say Mr. Gallegos, wait a minute you’re speaking out of two sides of your mouth. You respect this person’s freedom to practice and believe what he does but now you’re saying the arrogance of it. Well, I don’t know that there is such a conflict here. 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 so much, 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 government or the State of New Mexico but then he chose to live in the State of New Mexico. He wants nothing to do with the government or the laws but then he uses his position supposedly as an indigent to help himself to taxpayer money for his representation. And so I see a big contradiction over here on this. What strikes me about that your honor again is I haven’t even heard, and maybe we’ll hear it later one remark which I would probably call either conciliatory or even understanding, one understanding remark that says I understand that I’m in New Mexico. I understand that I have subjected myself to the laws of the State of New Mexico. I understand that it was or possibly could have been wrong to let these naked girls come to me. Nevertheless I still chose what I had to do because of my religion. The attitude that I have seen has been, it’s not wrong, it’s not against God’s laws, and I don’t want to recognize the State’s laws. Well I don’t think he has a choice in that, your honor and so I thought that needed to be brought out and I think some of it was in the psychological or the Presentence Report which I’m not going to read off to the Court because the Court has read it. And I think has seen enough of it. You know, your honor if I wanna practice whatever I wanna practice, whatever belief it is I think it’s such a precious thing we have in this country, but it’s not a total freedom. And it cannot be, because then anarchy and chaos reigns. And there has to be some check. You can disagree and we can disagree all we want that Criminal Sexual Contact of a Minor shouldn’t be so strictly construed, shouldn’t be so strictly interpreted, whatever. Well if that’s the case then we exercise our democratic right which is to change the law itself but just because the Defendant doesn’t agree with the law, doesn’t mean that he should escape responsibility for that.
And that brings me to my recommendations, your honor, because I believe there are a few things that obviously gets spoken about either by the prosecution, the defense, the court or all three of us. And that is we have to look at the reasons for punishment. And the first one, and not necessarily in order, or my opinion. Anyway. And I know it’s another one that we could disagree till the cows come home, is rehabilitation aspect. Is this the type of crime where someone has committed, or crimes, that we need to look at some type of rehabilitation and get them back into the community, where they can lead a full life and productive life? To me, I believe that one weighs less heavy on the scales because of his advanced age. The fact that he has lived a full and probably a productive life in some senses, but L.S. hasn’t, neither has A.S. And even their parents haven’t.
Now what about the community’s interest in rehabilitation? I think the first thing that comes to our mind is, you know they live on this compound. It’s very isolated, he’s not going to be a continuing harm to anybody, if he’s just let back onto the land and kept to himself with some very tight restrictions. Ok, his postings have nationwide and worldwide attention, as I understand. There are people out there longing for a change in this world for whatever’s happening in their lives. Those people could very well bring their children with them. We don’t know that. There could be other children that are going to be on the compound at some particular point in time. It has to, the community has to regenerate itself, or at some point all the followers, like all of us, are just gonna go back to the earth where we came from. So there’s that aspect.
The other aspect is the community standards for the behavior that we believe is appropriate. Correct or not, I mean, we always are changing, but the one thing that the community has spoken very loud, and our lawmakers have, is that the protection of the children is paramount. I don’t believe that the rehabilitative, prong, if you will, puts a lot of weight on the scale. And I know Ms. Montoya will do a very good job arguing to the contrary.
We also look at the next phase, which, like again, not in order, but the deterrents. What conduct are we wanting to deter when we sentence an individual? Well in this particular case, molesting a child is probably one of the most serious forms of conduct out there that needs to be scrutinized very carefully. If you remember what Ms. Welch said, “molesting the minds and thoughts may not be a crime,” but I ask the Court to consider when you’re molesting the mind of a child, to then physically take advantage of them, that needs to be weighed together. And so, what do we want to do? Do we want to deter, and how do we deter that conduct? We deter that conduct, your honor, by removing that person from the community. And, of course, that’s gonna be my recommendation, that he be removed from the community.
And before I get to the time, I want to talk about the other aspect that’s typically brought up in situations, which is the punitive. There, I guess, have been volumes and volumes and volumes written about sentencing, about criminal justice, about all these things that we do. I’d like to say, I’ve read a bunch of them. I haven’t. You know I try to read it. A lot of it is brought out through the wisdom of our Courts, through our trial judges, through our Appellate Courts, through conversations with our brethren and our sisters in the bar, and one that seems to get the most play is the punitive. Do we wanna go back to the old days, where people are punished for stealing a loaf of bread because they were hungry? No. Do we want to punish this defendant because his belief in worshipping his creator may have violated the law? You know that’s an interesting one too. The focus and my argument though is, do we want to punish this Defendant here for what he did to others? All we know of and all the court knows of is L.S. and A.S. We know that there was at least one more that we just... I felt, it was my judgment call, that we could not sustain or probably not even get a directed verdict or would have gotten a directed verdict on. So, punishment, and where does that factor in on all of this? But for, what I perceive, the arrogance of the Defendant, I probably wouldn’t have stood in front of this Court and said, I want to talk more about the other two. I probably wouldn’t have said a whole lot about the punitive aspect. But I believe that it is incumbent upon me to bring that up, as because of what I perceive as the arrogance is.
"I don’t care if it’s the law. This is what I do. I’m gonna do it anyway, I have more authority than a medical doctor. I have more authority than the children’s parents." And in his way of thinking that may be correct. That may be correct. But that’s not the laws, that’s not what the law says.
Factoring all those together, your honor, what I have done is tried, and also to take into consideration the Presentence Report, as look at the combine total and, of course, the Court knows that if all the counts were stacked, it would come up to eighteen years. There, I’ll make brief mention, if I may, about Ms. Montoya’s motion for house arrest, because that was filed and I know she’s going to argue. And I’m just going to ask the Court to deny that, because my recommendation is going to be more than what the mandatory time is. The mandatory time is three years. I believe that that is what Ms. Montoya would want the Court to do is to say, “Put him on an ankle monitor. Send him back to the compound, and we’ll consider that, his debt to society." Well, I don’t believe that’s sufficient. I’m going to ask the court to sentence the defendant, on count two, to fifteen years. Of course, mandatory three years of that has to be served. I’m going to ask that the court sentence the Defendant to eighteen months on count three and eighteen months on count four. I’ll ask the court to consider running counts three and four concurrent to each other and also concurrent to count two. But I will ask the court to impose the full fifteen years in count two. I believe that is the most grievous count. I believe but for the fact of L.S. testifying as she did and what I believe the jury given her consideration for that, that we possibly could have had another conviction on that.
Was real interesting when I spoke with L.S. was, she's a very smart person and she said, "What if I don’t testify at all?" And I explained to her what could happen. But I also told her that if she understood and if she cared for this person as much as she said she does, that this is the one chance to explain to the jury how she feels about what happened and whether it was wrong or not wrong. And so I knew that was a calculated risk, but, as I said earlier, our job, your honor, is to seek the truth, to seek justice and I believe that’s what did happen in this case. I won’t lament that fact. I will say that it, my opinion anyway, as I said earlier on, that it might have been the easiest count to prove, whatever. But for those considerations, your honor, I think and also for, I believe John and Elsa, when we spoke to them, I believe that they concurred with the PSR for six years. John was a little more ambivalent about it. Of course, Elsa believes that there is some more time warranted, more than the three years. And so, I think that kinda brings us to where we’re at. I will ask the Court to consider this and I do have one more matter to speak about but maybe we can do it at the end of the recommendations, your honor. Maybe if I can ask Ms. Montoya how long her presentation is or how many people or how the Court wants to do that.
Judge Baca: Alright.
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