Montoya Trial Brings Dismay to District : Politics: Gloom deepens in the San Gabriel Valley as the testimony continues. But the state senator is not without his supporters.

At Alice’s Beauty Shop in the heart of La Puente’s three-block downtown, there is talk of politics and disillusionment.

Owner Alice Laughlin met Democratic state Sen. Joseph B. Montoya when they belonged to a Catholic youth organization about 30 years ago. She had all but forgotten him, but when he was running for the state Assembly in the early ‘70s, he came into her shop and greeted her by name.

That impressed her, she recalled recently. She remembered thinking that he appeared to be a young man on his way up.

But now, the local boy who made good is on trial in a Sacramento federal courthouse, facing 12 charges of extortion, racketeering, bribery and money laundering. Montoya has proclaimed his innocence. But virtually every day since the trial began Dec. 4, the prosecution has depicted him as a venal, money-obsessed politician who expected campaign contributions or speaking fees in exchange for his legislative support. Montoya offered “legislation with a price tag,” one witness said; a prosecutor in the case claimed that the lawmaker relied on a “code green” staff notation on his calendar to remind him when he was scheduled to receive money.

“You hear that kind of stuff so often about politicians,” Laughlin said during a pause in business at her shop. “It’s a shame that someone you knew would be part of a scandal.”

In Montoya’s home district, which encompasses several working class cities in the San Gabriel Valley, the first reaction among many of those who have known and dealt with Montoya over the years has been to rally to the defense of their native son. Local officeholders, educators and Chamber of Commerce officials make a point of praising him as an effective legislator who has always watched out for their interests. In the past, they add, he served as a role model for Latinos who followed him into politics.

But as his trial enters its third week, even some of those who consider themselves Montoya supporters say they are dismayed at the allegations being aired in court.

“I don’t know what’s going to come of this,” said Jess Luera, a Norwalk-La Mirada school board member who said he has long admired Montoya’s achievements and style. “I wish him well, but it doesn’t look so good. Joe’s worked hard. He moved up the ladder. Maybe he moved too quickly.”

Montoya, 50, is a product of the San Gabriel Valley, and of its politics, but especially of La Puente, a gritty town often overshadowed by the City of Industry, Whittier, El Monte and West Covina. La Puente has only 33,000 inhabitants, although it has grown considerably since Montoya moved there with his parents at age 15.

He graduated from La Puente High School in 1957. He was on the track and football teams, but otherwise did not distinguish himself, according to Robert Schilling, who was principal at the time.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t remember much about him other than he was kind of a nice, outgoing little kid,” Schilling said. “He was a runner. He wasn’t one of these terrific standouts. He was just a nice little kid.

“He’s having a time now, isn’t he?” Schilling added.

Montoya served four years in the Air Force and then graduated from UCLA. Soon after, he began a long career in public service. At age 28, he became one of La Puente’s youngest City Council members, and from 1971-72 served as mayor.

Today, he lives only a stone’s throw from the La Puente city limits, in a neighborhood called Avocado Hills, an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County.

Ask people on the streets of his district about Montoya and many have only a superficial knowledge of his position and his current troubles.

“No, no. It’s not the talk of the town,” said La Puente Mayor Max Ragland, who has served on the City Council on and off since 1958.

After all, the area is booming with a teeming immigrant population and myriad factories that provide its economic base and employ thousands of people. There are scores of recently built suburban tract homes. The town squares that once were the centers of activity--and distinguished one community from the other--were robbed years ago of much activity by modern shopping centers.

But the trial is the talk among those who knew Montoya and worked with him.

At La Puente City Hall, some of the old-timers say they hope the trial goes Montoya’s way.

“I personally have no animosity against him, and I hope he’s innocent--or maybe I should say, I hope he can prove he’s innocent,” said Ruth Watson, assistant to the La Puente city manager.

“As far as I know, he was honest and conscientious,” Mayor Ragland said.

Montoya also has defenders at the Chalet Basque, a restaurant in downtown La Puente that he used to frequent.

“I don’t pay attention to what they say up there (in Sacramento),” the Chalet’s bartender, who would not give his name, said of the trial. “I don’t believe that about the bribery either. I don’t believe a lot of stuff in the paper. It’s up to the courts to take care of it.”

Still, there are signs that the trial is eroding his popularity.

“Of the people that I’ve talked to and discussed this with . . . there are a lot of mixed feelings about this whole thing,” said Isabel Gonthier, who serves on the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees. “Many people feel that all people in state offices are often targets of their enemies. Then there are those who will say, ‘The SOB is guilty.’

“Some of us are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” she said.

Those who seem to be reflecting the most on Montoya’s fate are the legions of Latino community leaders who have served on various boards or commissions throughout the San Gabriel Valley. Many of them feel beholden to Montoya for blazing the political trail at a time when there were few Latino elected officials.

“Joe is gente ,” said Maria Avila, a long-time Montoya supporter from El Monte who is now president of the county’s Commission on the Status of Women. “Joe’s been supportive of his community. He looks out for us.

“I personally get angry that he’s been singled out for this,” she said. “I think it’s public knowledge that there are others that may have been involved in other things. They’ve decided to quit and that’s that. But Joe’s a fighter. He could have quit, but he didn’t. That’s the kind of person Joe is. Maybe that’s why he’s rubbed people the wrong way.”

Luera, the Norwalk-La Mirada school board member, said he is saddened by the charges against Montoya, as are many of the Latino clients at the senior citizens’ center where he works.

“Some of the seniors come to me and ask, ‘ Que pasa con Jose ?’ They want to be supportive, but they don’t really know,” he said.

Luera said that as the trial progresses, it will become more difficult for Montoya to get out from under the cloud of the scandal, even if he is acquitted.

“When you throw mud at a wall, something is going to stick,” he said. “The mark will remain. Joe, whether he’s innocent or not, is going to live with this the rest of his life.”

Raul Ruiz, a Chicano studies professor at Cal State Northridge and longtime Chicano activist who knows Montoya, said Latino voters often have been too forgiving in their attitudes toward Latino politicians.

“Maybe in the past we were not willing to hold someone up to a higher level of accountability because we were simply glad to have a Mexican in office,” he said. “But (Latino politicians) have to realize that they must be more accountable, that they have to set an example, that there is absolutely no excuse for them.