Laramie City Council candidate Paul Montoya said he’s not one to back down from a challenge, even if that challenge is a felony charge.
Montoya told Cowboy State Daily on Friday he doesn’t plan to cease his City Council campaign despite facing a felony charge for allegedly disabling Wyoming Public Radio’s transmitters and remote access to them when he worked there in 2022.
“The charges are false,” he said.
Montoya is fully eligible to run for public office unless and until convicted.
On Tuesday, Montoya will have an arraignment in Albany County District Court.
He is facing one felony charge of committing crimes against computer users, which could mean up to three years in prison and up to $3,000 in fines if convicted.
Montoya said he hasn’t committed any of the crimes he’s accused of and plans on fighting them all the way to a jury trial.
“I want to have my name cleared,” he said.
The fact that the alleged events happened in the fall 2022, but he was not arrested until this spring makes him question if there are any political motivations at play and “shows how weak of a case they have,” Montoya said.
What Happened?
According to the charging affidavit, Montoya allegedly disabled radio towers and remote access to the transmitters on two days in the fall of 2022.
On one day, Montoya is accused of disabling the towers remotely while staying at a hotel in upstate New York. On the other occasion, he’s accused of physically entering the tower facility and disabling it.
Montoya would have had access to perform these actions as he was the director of engineering for Wyoming Public Radio (WPR) at the time, but University of Wyoming Police Detective Andrew Vielhak confirmed with Public Radio staff that Montoya had not been granted permission to access or disable the station’s transmitters.
Montoya had also been a radio host on WPR’s “Wyoming Sounds” at the time of the alleged events.
Montoya told Cowboy State Daily any actions he took were “in a broad sense” within the scope of his job duties.
He also said his former manager had a history of facilitating a hostile work environment. It was this manager, he said, who forced him into retirement the next spring over the allegations that he hacked the station’s transmitters.
WPR station manager Christina Kuzmych did not respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment Thursday.
The Race
Montoya is running for one of the two open council seats for Ward 1 in Laramie. He filed his campaign about two weeks after he was arrested and charged.
“I want to help the city with its current issues and keep my campaign going through election day,” he said.
Laramie Vice Mayor Sharon Cumbie, one of his council opponents, criticized Montoya on Thursday for not dropping out of the race and questioned his ability to serve as a council member because of the allegations brought against him.
“This was not passive-aggressive behavior, it was very extreme,” she said.
Montoya said Cumbie’s comments were inappropriate.
“By Sharon Cumbie saying I should drop out of the race, it shows she has no belief in the presumption of innocence,” he said.
Montoya has been very vocal in his criticisms of the Laramie City Council and the financial expenditures of the city, mentioning how the city manager makes $173,074 a year and the recreation center and airport operate on yearly deficits. Many other local rec centers and airports in Wyoming are in a similar financial position.
“All of the top tier administration in Laramie get paid exuberant amounts of money,” he said. “All of that money could be used for improving roads and sidewalks around the city.”
He said his criticisms have made Cumbie nervous about the upcoming race.
“Most of the city council haven’t done the job of effectively watching over the city to begin with,” he said.
The top four of the five candidates in the Ward 1 race will advance to the general election, so as long as Montoya doesn’t finish last, he’ll advance.
Doesn't Square
WPR staff had told Vielhak that Montoya had been “severely angry with WPR in the past, been subject to many complaints and had a deteriorating relationship with WPR administration at the time of the incident,” according to court documents.
Montoya said this doesn’t square with the dedication he showed to the station, donating thousands of hours working on the air on “Wyoming Sounds” and for long fundraising drives.
Montoya has worked in radio broadcasting for 48 years in Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Cheyenne and Laramie.
He also worked with the Federal Communications Commission in 1986 to help develop the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and most recently helped develop the new WY state EAS plan put into effect in 2023.
He also was in charge of setting up much of the equipment at WPR he is now accused of disabling. That he is being accused of purposely disabling this system is “absurd,” Montoya said.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Why would I want to do damage to a system that alerts people about emergencies?”
He also pointed to the fact that radio stations often go off the air due to technical difficulties.
The crux of the state’s evidence against Montoya on the second hack of the transmitters is a search warrant showing he was somewhere in the very general vicinity of the towers at the time of the crime when he had allegedly told others he was still on the East Coast.
“To assume any intentional effort on my part to down the system and then the emergency system is quite a reach,” he said.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
