The State - News from Oct. 12, 1986

Convicted four times for drunk driving, Agapito Guajardo Perez has traded his Kern County jail cell for the life of a silent monk. West Kern Municipal Judge Frank A. Hoover released Perez, 23, from jail after he completed two months of a six-month jail term--with the stipulation that Perez spend a year at a remote monastery in North Carolina, where most of the time is spent in silence. “He’s not in custody, but he doesn’t leave the monastery,” Hoover said. “He’s all by himself. He can’t go out.” The unique probation was the idea of Roman Catholic priests in North Dakota, who previously worked with Perez and wrote to Hoover saying that they believe the arrangement might “turn (Perez’s) life around.”