My Incredible Story

I was born and raised here in Tucson. My mother, Constance Smith, was Irish and my father, Angel Butierez, was Hispanic. They lived in a one room shack on Thurber when I was born.

My grandmother was Ramona Calderon, and my grandfather was Filomeno Gutierrez. My grandmother was a deeply religious woman. She believed that when my father was born, God’s presence was so powerful that he was an angel sent from heaven, and she called him her angel.

When my father’s birth certificate was filled out, someone made a mistake and wrote the last name as Butierez instead of Gutierrez. My grandmother, believing this was a sign from God, changed the last names of her older children to Butierez, and the younger children were born with that name as well.

Growing up in Tucson, I witnessed many changes over the years. Tucson used to be the biggest small town you’d ever seen. I was raised to be a hard worker, and attended several different schools across Tucson and eventually finished school in Marana.

After school, I signed up to join the United States Marines. I passed the written exam, and on my way to Phoenix to complete the physical, my girlfriend at the time was involved in a serious accident. Because of that, I never made it to Phoenix. That same day, I called my uncle Melvin Swinson and went to work for Swinson’s Painting.

I quickly fell in love with painting, and it became the career I chose in 1991. It has been honest, hard work that I have taken pride in.

All in all, I was living a pretty normal life. Then, in 1991, over just 1.3 grams of marijuana and a ridiculous accusation, I became entangled in the justice system in a legal matter that completely turned my life upside down.

I eventually wound up in prison for a crime I did not commit. I was sent to a maximum-security facility, surrounded by rapists, murderers, and some of society’s worst offenders. For a man who had grown up living a simple life, the experience was deeply traumatic.

For the next 30 years, I fought to prove to the State of Arizona that I had never been charged with the crime, never committed it, and was never convicted of it. It took three decades for the truth to finally come out.

During those years, my life unraveled. I became addicted to drugs and experienced homelessness. I walked a very dark path, struggling just to survive. But after I finally completed everything the system required of me, I made the decision to turn my life around.

I went back to work and was hired by a company called Express Painting. During that time, I was also rescuing horses and dogs, as I have always been a devoted animal lover.

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After ten years of working for Express Painting, I left and built my own company, Butierez Painting.

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This was not an easy task but fortunately, I had a good woman beside me. Together we built Butierez Painting.

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I wound up marrying Paula who’s now Paula Butierez

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and her daughter and my son have become a family.

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Throughout all of this, I continued fighting my case. Eventually, the State of Arizona admitted what I had been telling them for 30 years, and I was fully exonerated.

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After my exoneration, I went on to purchase Express Painting.

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Not long after that, I found myself driving around town asking God, Why did this happen to me? As I looked around, I saw how out of control homelessness and drug addiction had become in our community. I saw drugs flooding our city and believed they were coming through the southern border, due to a failure to properly secure it.

It was then that I realized I had walked a path that made me the perfect individual to represent everyone. I may not have been a politician but my life experience was absolutely unattainable for anyone else. A man who could understand social injustices, the working man, the homeless and business. That realization changed me. I decided I didn’t just want to complain, I wanted to fix what was broken. I wanted to help my community.

That is when I decided to run for the United States Congress.