Ex-Convict Seeks New Start as Missionary

THOUSAND OAKS — A Newbury Park man whose ties to an anti-government militia group landed him in jail last year for 300 days is now free and said he hopes to follow a different path: a life devoted to the poor--like Mother Teresa.

And while Timothy Paul Kootenay said he hopes such a mission would take him far, far away, the journey will have to wait until he is no longer on probation.

Kootenay, 37, said he is looking for full-time work so he can save enough money to join a Christian organization in another country that helps the poorest of the poor.

“It will be something like what Mother Teresa did,” he said. “People admire people who help people. I want to live someplace and get my life straightened out.”

Kootenay, a former tree trimmer and gun dealer, said he greatly admired the late Roman Catholic nun, who in 1979 won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor and disadvantaged. She will be buried on Saturday.

“She spent 50 years of her life . . . helping outcast people,” Kootenay said. “She was doing what she felt in her heart was the right thing to do.”

Kootenay may have thought he was doing the right thing in 1994, when he used bogus money orders purchased from a Wisconsin militia group to buy rifles.

Now he wants the public to know that he realizes he was wrong. Described by relatives as a devout Christian, Kootenay in recent years has left the Seventh-day Adventist Church to affiliate with other denominations.

Now, more than four months after his release from Ventura County Jail on a theft conviction, Kootenay is reluctant to discuss his past or present life in any detail. He won’t reveal the nature of the part-time work he does now or where he wants to do his missionary work. He said he just wants to be left alone.

The polite, soft-spoken Kootenay remains distrustful of the media, which he maintains painted a distorted picture of him.

“They printed a bunch of lies,” he said, without specifying any inaccuracies.

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Kootenay’s supporters, who include some law enforcement officials, describe him as a shy, impressionable man who simply got involved with the wrong crowd.

“I got led the wrong way by these people and I got messed up,” Kootenay said. “I wished I never met these people, OK?”

He and his mother, Arla Schultz, with whom he lives, stressed that Kootenay is no danger to anyone. But that is not how Ventura County prosecutors portrayed him. They characterized him as an anti-government militant.

Kootenay was released from jail April 25. Last fall, he pleaded guilty to forging two money orders totaling more than $5,200 to buy six semiautomatic rifles in April 1994.

Kootenay purchased the phony money orders from an anti-government group in Appleton, Wis., that contends that regular U.S. currency is illegal. At the time, he owned a federal firearms license, which allowed him to buy and sell guns. That license was revoked upon his conviction.

Following his arrest in and extradition from Montana in the spring of 1996, Kootenay was released on $25,000 bail after Schultz put up her home as collateral.

Her son soon fled to Belize, the only English-speaking country in Central America, where he did missionary work, according to Maggie O’Neill, who helped track him down for Ventura-based Surety Management. The company served as an investigator for Acme Bail Bonds, which posted Kootenay’s bail.

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Within a couple of months, however, Kootenay surrendered to the U.S. consulate in Belize City.

“[Schultz] was in the process of losing her house,” said O’Neill, who is now a crime-prevention officer with the Port Hueneme Police Department. “I think that was one of the reasons he turned himself in.”

Eric Norton, a senior agent with Surety, said Schultz was so cooperative during his company’s search for her son that it waived some $2,000 in investigation and court fees that could have been billed to her.

Of Kootenay, Norton said, “He seemed like a nice guy. He just got messed up with the real wrong people, that’s all.”

Even the company that Kootenay cheated in the firearms deal has forgiven him. After his arrest, Kootenay and his family made restitution to Fred Baker Firearms Inc. of Oklahoma City.

“It’s all been put to bed,” said Jason Ruegge, general manager of the store.

Kootenay said he wants the whole episode behind him, but it might not be that easy. He has been very withdrawn lately, according to Schultz.

Some people who used to consider Kootenay a friend have now abandoned him, she said.

One friend, whom she declined to identify, gives Kootenay odd jobs at a business he owns, but Schultz believes her son needs a full-time job, possibly self-employment.

“When you work for yourself, you make more money,” she said. “He needs a challenge.”

More money would also mean being able to afford tuition to a missionary school or traveling expenses to join a foreign missionary effort, she said.

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Kootenay is serving a four-year probation sentence, according to Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Brent Morris, who runs the records department.

The terms of the probation prohibit Kootenay from moving or leaving Ventura County for more than 72 hours without approval by the county Corrections Services Agency.

Officials at the agency said specific case information is confidential and therefore would not comment on the Kootenay case.

Generally speaking, however, the agency would not allow someone on probation to leave the country even for missionary work, according to Judie Sedell, a deputy probation officer.

“When someone is on probation, we are supervising them,” she said. “And you can’t supervise [someone] living far away.”