Joseph's saga continues to take unexpected turns (Odessa American Online)

Joseph's saga continues to take unexpected turns

April 30, 2010 10:05 PM
BY JOEL A. ERICKSON
By the time eighth period started Friday at Permian High School, Jerry Joseph was back on the basketball court.

Launching jumpers from the perimeter and taking the ball to the hoop like he has throughout his sophomore year.

Trapped in a hailstorm of allegations the past few days, Joseph, a 6-foot-5 star who was named the District 2-5A Newcomer of the Year, had been told that he was playing basketball at Permian under an assumed 16-year-old identity, that his real name was Guerdwich Montimere, that he had already graduated from Fort Lauderdale’s Dillard High School in 2007 after playing for one of the nation’s perennial basketball powerhouses.

No matter how many times he was asked, Joseph adamantly denied that he and Montimere were one and the same person.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials cleared Joseph on Thursday, Permian principal Roy Garcia said. He and Montimere are not the same person. But ICE confirmed that Joseph, a native of Haiti, is in the United States illegally.

“I think my kid was in a stressful situation before he ever came to the country, trying to make a better life for himself,” Permian boys basketball coach Danny Wright said. Joseph has lived with Wright and his family since the end of the last school year.

But Joseph won’t have to wait for his immigration hearing at the ICE Processing Center in El Paso. Wright has been appointed Joseph’s legal guardian, a move that allows the Permian sophomore to continue living in Odessa pending the hearing.

“It was probably a matter of an hour and a half,” Wright said. “Judges, attorneys, everybody involved was wonderful. It took a lot of people to get this done in such a short time.”

Even faster than the swirling circumstances that started this firestorm in the first place.

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Two weeks ago, Louis Vives, Cedric Smith and their South Florida Elite travel squad pulled up to the Southwest Community Center in Little Rock, Ark., to play their third game in the Real Deal in the Rock, a massive AAU tournament that drew teams from all over the nation.

His kids spotted the face first. A face Vives hadn’t seen in years, too many years to see the face on a basketball court playing for the New Mexico Force under the name Jerry Joseph. A face that looked exactly like Guerdwich Montimere.

“I had no doubt in my mind,” Vives said. “When you spend an entire summer with a kid, you get to know him inside and out.”

Vives confronted Joseph after the game. Called him Guerdwich.

“He looked at Lou like he was crazy,” Smith said.

Montimere originally elected to attend Highland Community College in Freeport, Ill., but former basketball coach Pete Norman said Montimere never made it to the court. According to Smith, a Dillard teammate and Terry Mills, a surrogate father who gave Montimere a place to stay in high school, Montimere headed back to Haiti at some point early in 2008.

But most of the people he knew in Florida haven’t seen Montimere since he graduated.

“He called me once, about a year ago, just to tell me he was doing all right,” Mills said.

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Last spring, Joseph and former UTPB basketball player Jabari Caldwell walked into Permian to enroll Joseph in classes.

Joseph has a Haitian birth certificate that lists his birthdate as Jan. 1, 1994. Born in Haiti, Joseph escaped a nasty 2008 hurricane season by moving to Fort Myers, Fla. In both places, Joseph had been homeless. His parents died before he turned 5.

Caldwell signed an affidavit stating that he was Joseph’s half-brother. For the first time in his life — Joseph didn’t attend school in Fort Myers — he enrolled in public school at Nimitz Junior High.

When former UTPB basketball coach Randy Lee left to take a similar job at Tennessee Temple last season, Caldwell left campus to return to Florida. Joseph didn’t want to go back.

Knowing that Wright has a reputation for opening his doors to kids in need, Joseph asked Wright if he could stay with the coach and his family.

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When Vives and Smith got back to the hotel room, the coaches typed Jerry Joseph into Google.

An Odessa American story popped up, a story about a 6-foot-5 kid from Haiti on the verge of becoming a star for the Permian basketball team. According to the story, former Dillard guard Jabari Caldwell was Joseph’s half-brother. Dillard teammate Alen Hardy played on the same team at UTPB.

Both coaches started calling people in Fort Lauderdale.

At least one call went to Ande Anderson, a Broward College assistant coach who had been a part of the Barton Ballas’ staff during Montimere’s time with the team.

Anderson found the same story. The pictures convinced him. Anderson called Joseph to confront him.

“The voice was the same,” Anderson said. “Same measurements, same build, same position, same facial expression.”

Joseph told Anderson he had no idea who the coach was talking about.

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E-mails and calls hit Permian and the Odessa American early this week. Each call had the same story. A former Dillard High School basketball player by the name of Guerdwich Montimere was posing as a high school student in Texas.

Permian school officials began an investigation. Garcia had already put Joseph’s records through the wringer. Before the basketball season began, Permian school officials made sure he was eligible to play. Wright and Garcia double-checked Joseph’s records, asked ECISD administration to approve his eligibility and took his case to the District Executive Committee. At all levels, Joseph met the qualifications to play, Garcia said.

But now Garcia and Permian assistant principal Gregory Nelson had to check Joseph’s documentation against a new set of allegations.

“Any time we get an accusation that serious, we have to check it out,” Permian principal Roy Garcia said. “If the allegations are true, that means a 22-year-old is walking around the halls with high school kids.”

An internal investigation that began Tuesday prompted Permian officials to turn the allegations over to Ector County Independent School District police, who contacted ICE on Thursday.

ICE determined that Joseph and Montimere are not the same person, Garcia said.

But the government agency found a different problem in Joseph’s story. Caldwell was not his brother. According to Garcia, ICE officials said Joseph has no family in the United States.

“From talking to the supervisor at ICE, I have been told he is in the country illegally,” Garcia said.

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Joseph called Wright’s wife, Jimmie, on Thursday to tell her Caldwell was not his half-brother.

According to Caldwell, a friend from the playground courts in Fort Lauderdale called Caldwell at UTPB last year, told him about Jerry, who wasn’t going to school in Fort Myers, and asked Caldwell for a favor.

“He asked me if it was possible for me to help him enroll in school,” Caldwell said. “I met him in Odessa. He came out here on a Greyhound.”

To avoid taking Joseph to the ICE Processing Center in El Paso, ICE officials needed somebody to take responsibility for Joseph’s care while he awaits an immigration hearing. Wright never hesitated.

“I’m going to try and see if I can get guardianship and adopt the kid,” Wright said Thursday night.

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Joseph’s odyssey isn’t over.

“We have to go through an immigration hearing,” Wright said. “But there’s nothing wrong with that. Do things right, do everything up above-board, and it gives this kid a little security, a little stability.”

Joseph declined to comment for this story. But his day ended on the basketball court, the same place most of his days at Permian have ended, under the eye of the man who has opened up his home and treated Joseph like a son.

“I don’t think there was a loser in this thing at all,” Wright said. “When this broke, there was a panic to do the right thing. I think everyone was trying to do their job to the best of their ability.”