The strange, sad life of Anthony Montero — a would-be journalist who ran a series of unsuccessful campaigns for public office under his alias, Paul A. Manner — apparently came to a tragic end in an alley just steps away from the South King Street storefront where he lived for the past several months.
Montero, 62, is believed to be the homeless man who was beaten to death by at least three young men early Friday morning near the corner of South King and Punahou streets.
Jeffrey Smith, who witnessed the fatal assault, identified the victim as his friend Paul Manner. The two men were part of a small group of homeless men who lived in the area.
Smith said his friend told him he was born in Los Angeles and that he graduated from Kalani High School.
Online records identify "Paul A. Manner" as an alias used by Montero, who was a familiar face to local journalists in the 1970s and ’80s.
Veteran print and broadcast reporters recalled Montero as a quiet, seemingly angry young man who would take the bus to news conferences, place his tape recorder next to the speaker, then stand silently in the back of the room. Usually dressed in black T-shirt and black jeans, Montero would not ask questions or speak to anyone else.
Identifying himself as a freelance journalist, Montero occasionally produced handwritten news releases and reports that he would copy and distribute.
Montero’s criminal record included four convictions for misdemeanor theft between 1979 and 1999.
In one case, Montero was found guilty of what a U.S. 9th Circuit judge would later call an "ingenious scheme" that involved Montero purchasing large quantities of cheap or worthless foreign coins, using them to buy books of stamps from stamp machines that could not distinguish the coins from quarters and dimes, then selling the stamps for profit.
A few years after Montero was last seen attending news conferences, he re-emerged as political candidate Paul A. Manner.
As Manner, Montero ran for U.S. Senate in 1998 and 2000, Honolulu mayor in 2004, governor in 2006 and 2010, and U.S. Senate again in 2012.
In a Honolulu Star-Bulletin questionnaire for the 2000 congressional race, Montero identified himself as a freelance news correspondent and said his goal was to prevent then-Vice President Al Gore, whom Montero believed to be "the third anti-Christ depicted in the Bible," from becoming president.
It is not known how long Montero had been homeless. Campaign filings dating back to his 2000 run for U.S. Senate list only a post office box for his address. Smith said he and Montero/Manner had been living in front of the Pinder surfboard shop on South King Street for about eight months.
