SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2014 THE NEW MEXICAN
Obituaries C-2 Police notes C-2 Family C-7 Celebrations C-8 El mitote C-8
LOCAL NEWS
Living with Children: Parents share blame when teens misbehave. Family, C-7
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Fired LANL worker joins watchdog group Loyalty revisited Newly declassified transcripts appear to exonerate physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. C-4
Political scientist files whistleblower suit; sees new role as being an advocate ‘on the outside’ By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
For years, James Doyle worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a nuclear weapons monitor, looking at how well nations around the globe were honoring arms reduction treaties. He saw it as saving the world from itself — until the lab abruptly fired
him in July. The move, which the lab blamed on budget cuts, triggered an outcry in nuclear disarmament circles. Doyle himself is fighting the layoff, calling it retaliation over an academic article he wrote saying the U.S. should get rid of its nuclear stockpile rather than maintaining it, one of the lab’s central missions. The
controversy has made Doyle a sort of cult figure among antinuke advocates. Now, Doyle, a 55-year-old political scientist from Santa James Doyle Fe, is taking his newfound fame, along with the reputation that he forged during his 17 years at the lab as an expert on nuclear nonproliferation, in a different direc-
tion, but with the same goal. He plans to team with the nonprofit Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a Santa Fe-based nuclear watchdog group, to monitor U.S. progress on its global commitment to draw down nuclear weapons. Specifically, Doyle aims to assess federal spending and policy on nonproliferation projects over time to measure whether the U.S. is keeping its promises in global treaties to reduce its arsenal, and to develop nonprolifera-
Hobby Craft Fair offers inmates a chance to prepare for life after prison
tion monitoring and verification technologies. “That’s the side of the laboratory that I worked in, so it’s great,” Doyle said of his new mission. “Now I can be an advocate on the outside for the work at the lab that I really thought was valuable.” But he frets that policymakers and leaders at the national labs don’t value that work as much as they do new production of
Please see FIRED, Page C-4
SANTA FE PREP
Campaign aims to raise millions for student aid Campus improvements also targeted in $14 million goal By Robert Nott The New Mexican
made, the prisoners are getting an understanding of what awaits them on the outside. For that reason, Marcantel said he regretted naming the event a hobby fair. This is all about business, so next time it should be renamed as a trades and crafts exposition, he said. A former sheriff’s captain in Bernalillo County, Marcantel spent 32 years chasing criminals. Now, he said, he is trying to reduce the chance that the criminals his prison system releases will harm anybody else. “I’ve done so many death announcements, calling someone to give them the worst news possible,” Marcantel said. “This is about protecting people. This ain’t about hugging inmates.” Van Horn, originally from Arizona, said he hopes to stay in Santa Fe when he is released from the Penitentiary of New Mexico.
After spending a day shadowing an older student at Santa Fe Preparatory School, “Johnny” knew that he wanted to attend seventh grade at the small, private school. For Johnny and his mom, who asked to remain anonymous, the biggest obstacle was the $20,000 annual tuition. She is a single mother who earns about $35,000 a year. But Prep’s new $2.5 million Strategic Impact Fund is helping out. The fund is covering some or all of the cost of tuition for about 40 students over the next few years in the hopes of attracting talented candidates whose families don’t have the resources to pay the cost of education themselves. That’s not all Prep is doing to help students like Johnny. The school, founded in 1963, announced in late September that it was beginning the public phase of its $14 million Campaign to Generate Impact. The school, which serves 316 students in grades 7-11, quietly kicked off the campaign 18 months ago — about the time of the school’s 50th anniversary — and it has already raised more than $10 million. About 20 percent of the $14 million will be used to create a small endowment for Breakthrough Santa Fe, a program for public school students; create a summer professional development program for teachers; and fund campus improvements. Another $5 million will go toward increasing the school’s current endowment of $12 million. Each year between 3 percent and 7 percent of that endowment is used for tuition assistance, according to Head Learner Jim Leonard. Prep is now offering 41 percent of its students some form of tuition assistance, Leonard said. Kezha Hatier-Riess, director of advancement for the school, said “Santa Fe is such a culturally diverse place and we want to represent our community more. Families think of Prep as not being an accessible school.” Speaking of the 15 to 20 students who are qualified to attend Prep every year but who cannot afford the tuition, Hatier-Riess said, “Saying ‘no’ got really depressing.” In 2012, the Colorado-based Malone Family Foundation gave Prep a $2 million grant to add to its endowment fund for the purpose of offering full or partial assistance to deserving, gifted students who rank in the top 5 percent of their class. The challenge of using endowment money,
Please see PRISON, Page C-3
Please see AID, Page C-4
Inmate Billy Kerr speaks Sharon Shaffer and Roberta Glick about his artwork Saturday during the Hobby Craft Fair at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. About 40 inmates sold their wares at the fair. PHOTOS BY JANE PHILLIPS/THE NEW MEXICAN
Testing the waters on the inside By Milan Simonich The New Mexican
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avid Van Horn, convicted murderer, baker and jewelry-maker, talked easily with customers Saturday in a makeshift marketplace at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. Van Horn, 39, has spent half his life in prison for a crime rampage near Lordsburg. He and a female cohort terrorized an older couple, then set fire to their home. A 68-year-old woman died in the fire. With his bald pate and orange jumpsuit, Van Horn looked like many of the other 40 inmates who sold their wares at the penitentiary’s first Hobby Craft Fair. His crimes were more violent than those of the other prisoners, but Van Horn had plenty in common with the rest. All of those allowed to sell their products at the fair are now classified as minimum-security inmates who
Inmates from 10 state prisons sell their crafts Saturday in a makeshift marketplace at the Penitentiary of New Mexico.
are within five years of being released, said state Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel. Van Horn is scheduled to be freed in July, after 20 years in prison.
Marcantel said he and his staff are trying to prepare the prisoners for a successful transition to lives in the business world. By giving them a chance to sell the jewelry, artworks and blankets they have
Guatemalan man repays community’s kindness by sharing his love of soccer By Uriel J. Garcia The New Mexican
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decade ago, Luis Morataya was walking down a street in Colonia El Limón Zona 18, a violence-plagued town north of Guatemala City, on his way to his mother’s house. It was an ordinary Monday morning, he recalled, until two men on a motorcycle pulled up next to him. The passenger slowly pulled out a black gun, and as he was about to point it toward Morataya, the driver quickly told him in Spanish to put it away
Sunday SPOTLIGHT because “La policía esta ahi” — “the police are here.” Retelling the story recently, Morataya, 36, said, “Then the driver told me, ‘Next time we’ll kill you.’ ” Frightened, Morataya packed some belongings and left two days later for the U.S., leaving his wife, 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son behind while he looked for a new home. He came to Santa Fe because he knew
Section editor: Howard Houghton, 986-3015, hhoughton@sfnewmexican.com
people living here who had emigrated from his hometown. And soon after his arrival, Morataya, a soccer enthusiast who had run a successful league in Colonia El Limón Zona 18, started a new league here that has grown to 12 teams. Morataya speaks passionately about soccer (called football in Guatemala) and how he tried to use the sport to save children’s lives in his hometown. He said his town was troubled by violence associated with a gang known as La Mara 18, an international criminal organization that the FBI says origi-
Please see KINDNESS, Page C-2
Luis Morataya of Santa Fe practices with players of the Un Deportivo Más, Un Deliquente Menos soccer league at Sweeney Elementary School recently. Ten years ago, Morataya left violence-plagued Guatemala, where he had started a youth soccer league. LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN
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