Miami Hairball: Convicted Cuban spy gets lighter sentence (Judge ignores prosecutor request)

[Billy Burnett]

{Bold text highlighted by me} My comments below story.

Convicted Cuban spy gets lighter sentence
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1281665.html

One of the Cuban Five defendants, initially sentenced to life in prison for
espionage conspiracy, saw his term reduced to 22 years. The judge rejected
an even lighter sentence recommended by prosecutors.

At Cuban spy Antonio Guerrero's sentencing hearing in 2001, federal prosecutors pushed for the maximum life sentence, pointing to his resolute lack of remorse and his self-proclaimed loyalty to the Cuban regime.

What a difference eight years -- and a new U.S. administration -- make.

Advancing arguments sounding more political than legal, assistant U.S. attorney Caroline Heck Miller on Tuesday urged a Miami federal judge to reduce Guerrero's life sentence to just 20 years, in keeping with an agreement reached between the government and defense.

Heck Miller said the reduced sentence would show ``the fairness of the United States' judicial system'' to the rest of the world -- contrary to Cuba's very active public relations campaign to the contrary.

But U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard didn't buy it, sentencing Guerrero, 50, to nearly 22 years for espionage conspiracy and taking Heck Miller to task for singing such a different tune.

In 2001, the judge pointed out, Guerrero's ``conduct posed a serious threat to the national security of the United States'' in the eyes of the government.

By now advocating for 20 years -- below the statutory sentencing guidelines -- ``How does that not strain your credibility?'' the judge asked Heck Miller.

In late 2001, Lenard gave Miami-born Guerrero, who got a job at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West, the maximum life sentence for conspiring with four co-defendants to obtain top secret information for the government of Fidel Castro.

But an appeals court in Atlanta threw out Guerrero's sentence last year, ruling it was excessive because Guerrero didn't actually gather and send any classified materials to his handlers in Havana.

At Tuesday's hearing, Lenard defended her reasoning for the life sentence, saying that although Guerrero did not obtain state secrets from the air base, ``the evidence did indicate that he very much wanted to.''

She noted that, among other acts, he made a ``mental blueprint'' of a Boca Chica building that was to house top secret materials.

Guerrero, arrested in 1998 with other members of Cuba's ``Wasp'' spy network, will still serve another 11 years to complete his revised sentence.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ordered Lenard to redo her sentences for two other defendants convicted with Guerrero: Ramón Labañino, who also received a life sentence for the espionage conspiracy, and Fernando González, who got 19 years for acting as an agent of the Cuban government.

The resentencings of those two defendants have been postponed because of a dispute over espionage damage assessments. No date has been set.

The 11-year-old case has been mired in controversy because the Wasp spy network was linked to the Cuban government's 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters. Four pilots for the Brothers to the Rescue -- which flew missions searching for rafters in the Florida Straits -- were killed in the shoot-down.

The appellate court upheld the sole murder-conspiracy conviction and life sentence of spymaster Gerardo Hernández, who was most directly implicated in the shoot-down.

All five men have been turned into national heroes in Cuba, which has waged a prominent international campaign portraying them as victims of a biased judicial system who were prosecuted for trying to protect Cuba from Miami-based exile extremists.

Relatives of three of the Brothers' victims came to Tuesday's hearing believing that Guerrero would be sentenced to 20 years. They left pleased that Lenard imposed a tougher term. The judge followed the sentencing guidelines, which ranged from 22 to 27 years.

``It makes me proud of the U.S. justice system,'' said Maggie Khuly, a Miami architect whose brother, Armando Alejandre Jr., was killed in the shoot-down. ``She's looking out for us in a specific way that's different from the prosecution, but it's valid.''

``It shows that the judge took her own stand,'' said Mirta Mendez, the sister of another victim, Carlos Costa. His parents also attended the sentencing.

Miriam de la Peña, the mother of another victim, Mario M. de la Peña, criticized Guerrero for not apologizing for his crime. ``I'm sorry he shows no remorse for trying to endanger our national security,'' she said.

Guerrero's lawyer, Leonard Weinglass, implored the judge to impose the 20-year sentence, addressing not only Guerrero's character development but also the strained politics of the case.

``The court is sentencing an individual -- not a country,'' Weinglass said, without mentioning Cuba by name.

The poor soul is getting sentenced for essentially a thought crime.

How could he be a spy at the base?

Here's how he got onto the base, as the testimony in the Cuban 5 trial showed ... Cuba was not sending the Avispa network any money, they had to generate their own incomes. They had various jobs at car washes, as dishwashers, and such. Low pay work. Antonio Guerrero got a job at a lawn maintenance company pushing mowers, rakes, weed eaters, and blowers at nice homes in the Keys. AFTER he got this job at the lawn maintenance company (a small 4 man crew with one pickup truck and a trailer) the owner picked up a choice customer - Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West.

Antonio Guerrero didn't work for the Naval Air Station. He worked for a lawn mowing company hired to mow the lawn there. His access to anything secret at the base was impossible - he was pushing weed eaters and blowers on the lawn - nor was his job mowing the lawn at the base pre planned. The so called "mental blueprint'' of a Boca Chica building was because he had run the motorized edger and weed eater around that building many times as part of his mowing job. The lawn crew spent 3-4 hours at the base once every 2 or 3 weeks, and they had no time to "spy" because the boss always pushed them hard to get to the next job.

The Antonio Guerrero / Boca Chica Naval Air Station aspect of the case is one of the most spurious claims in the prosecution.



www.freethefive.org

[flamingdem]

1. Wow. Only 22 years! nt

[Mika]

2. What an injustice indeed.

Its more of an indictment of the security of the Naval Base than anything.

To think that a guy on the hired lawn crew could somehow gain access to highly secure national security documents at a US military base is a friggin joke.

The Naval Base security officers should be up in arms over this accusation against their ability to carry out their sworn duties.

Note the comments by the judge as to the prosecutor's credibility when, upon further review, even he thought the sentencing was too harsh and asked for a reduction in addition to the appeals courts.

Well, if the prosecution's credibility is in question, how can the judge affirm the original sentencing and ignore the recommendation by the prosecutors as well as the courts, based on their original prosecution?

More of the incredible pretzel logic that surrounds anything about Cuba in S Florida.

[Judi Lynn]

3. How could anyone be this vicious? Twisted? Is she afraid the violent faction of the Cuban "exiles"

will blow her up if she lets them down and shows human dignity, and delivers a decent solution?

Here's her grimey, hateful face, on the right:

[EFerrari]

4. I wonder how much that judge cost.

What a farce.

[Peace Patriot]

5. I suspect that the CIA wants some of their operatives back, and this draconian sentence

on unproven charges creates a bargaining chip.

I don't underestimate the sheer venom of the Miami mafia, so it could be just that. But with the 'winds of change' blowing around this issue (and maybe it's not all just smoke), the CIA may see it as an opportunity for a "prisoner exchange." But you can't have a prisoner exchange without having some prisoners. So they pick up this poor sap and some others, trump up "spying" charges and prosecute them to the max.

"Justice" it is not.

[Billy Burnett]

6. Bingo. You are onto something PP! Check these 2 Miami Hairball stories today.

Two stories this morning in the Hairball have me wondering just what you bring up ...

Cuba allows U.S. access to jailed dual citizens
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1283494.html

While Cuba recently gave a State Department official permission to
visit jailed U.S.-Cuban citizens, travel restrictions remain in place.

WASHINGTON -- Cuba recently gave a top State Department official a long-blocked permission to visit dual U.S.-Cuban citizens jailed on the island -- but it did not accept a U.S. offer to relax travel restrictions on each other's diplomats, El Nuevo Herald has confirmed.

The two issues, though relatively minor in the broad sweep of decades of bilateral hostilities, underlined both the opportunities and limits for improved relations facing the new governments of Barack Obama and Raúl Castro.

Havana's decision to allow the prison visits ``reflect the benefits that could accrue to both countries as a result of better communications and, conversely, how our interests are poorly served when we don't communicate,'' said Bob Pastor, the top Cuban expert in Jimmy Carter's administration.

The State Department confirmed Wednesday that acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Bisa Williams visited with jailed dual U.S.-Cuban citizens there during her trip to Cuba last month to discuss a possible resumption of direct mail services between the two nations. No further details on the visits were available.

Like other countries, including the United States, Cuba does not recognize dual nationalities. Cuba treats those cases as Cuban-only citizens and regularly denies foreign consular officials on the island access to the dual citizens jailed there.

State Department officials are known to have long been pressing for U.S. consular access to the U.S.-Cuban citizens jailed in Cuba. ``We hope the U.S. consular access to dual nationals imprisoned in Cuba would be on a continuing basis,'' the department said.

Cuba has imprisoned 19 U.S. citizens, including 10 or 11 believed to also have Cuban citizenship, according to the State Department. Those who have only U.S. nationality already receive consular visits. The charges against both groups include migrant smuggling, drug trafficking or possession, homicide and corruption of minors.

Requests for comment sent to the Cuban diplomatic mission in Washington were not answered. U.S. consular access to dual nationals jailed in Cuba has long been a sensitive issue for both sides as American officials in Havana sought to help U.S.-only citizens while trying to avoid any spillover of the assistance to their Cuban-American prison mates.

In the 1990s, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana had a cardboard box where officials dropped off reading and personal hygiene materials for U.S. prisoners, said a mission employee at the time. But the U.S. inmates could not pass the goods to their Cuban-American prison mates.

The U.S. proposal for a mutual easing of travel restrictions on diplomats was made by the Bush administration and repeated after Obama was sworn in, but Havana has not responded, the State Department confirmed.

Under current restrictions, each side must ask for permission for their diplomats in Havana, Washington or the U.N. headquarters in New York City to travel outside certain clearly limited areas -- permissions that are seldom approved, the official added.

Until 2001, Cuban diplomats could roam without restrictions within 25 miles of the White House. But after the FBI arrested the Pentagon's top Cuba analyst, Ana Belen Montes, as a Cuban spy that year, Cuban diplomats were restricted to the area inside Washington's Beltway freeway and a corridor to Dulles airport in Virginia.

U.S. diplomats in Havana generally have been restricted to the Havana provincial limits. Consular officials from both countries have more freedom to travel because of international treaties that require host nations to allow foreign consuls access to their citizens.

Cuba's permission for U.S. consular visits was one of the few friendly gestures toward Washington that Havana is known to have made since Obama began a string of efforts to improve relations with the communist-ruled island -- efforts that critics say are bound to produce little improvement.

``When the United States has stood tough, the Cubans have been a lot more reasonable than when the U.S. has tried to accommodate them,'' said Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in Arlington, Va.

Boquete seeking U.S. residency to avert deportation to Cuba
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1283457.html

A Cuban national wrongly accused of sexual assault and threatened with
eventual deportation is now seeking a green card and perhaps citizenship.

Orlando Boquete, a Mariel refugee erroneously convicted of sexual assault and threatened with deportation to Cuba, is now trying to become a permanent U.S. resident, which would make him eligible for citizenship.

A Miami attorney who represents Boquete, a Cudjoe Key resident, has filed papers with a Department of Homeland Security immigration agency and is hopeful his client will eventually receive a green card.

If the effort succeeds, it would end Boquete's immigration limbo. As long as he remains deportable, Boquete cannot travel abroad, get a green card or citizenship, and could find himself on a deportation flight to Cuba if relations with Havana were normalized.

Though Cuba deportations are currently limited to special cases, the advent of President Barack Obama's efforts to cool tensions with Havana have spurred thousands of deportable Cubans to shield themselves legally against removal.

``I am optimistic, because I believe Immigration will show compassion toward me and will afford me the opportunity to become a permanent resident and be able to organize my life better,'' Boquete told El Nuevo Herald on Wednesday.

Tal Winer, Boquete's attorney at Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, began the green card process this past weekend.

Winer sent to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services by overnight mail two separate applications designed to help his client regularize his status.

The applications include a request for permanent residence under the Cuban Adjustment Act and a request for a waiver of the grounds under which Boquete could be deported. Those include convictions for crimes he allegedly committed after escaping from prison where he was doing time for the sexual assault conviction.

Winer's package included a letter on Boquete's behalf signed by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.

``While no official action can give him back those years, allowing him to earn a living and rebuild his life in his adopted country as a permanent resident without facing continued uncertainty about the risk that he will be deported, is an important step,'' Reno wrote.

Winer said he expects U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to take several months to decide Boquete's case. The case hit the headlines in 2006 when DNA exonerated Boquete of the 1983 sexual assault conviction. He was freed with the help of the Innocence Project -- only to be detained again by immigration authorities.

He was eventually freed from Krome detention center after his lawyers struck a deal with federal officials that deferred deportation and required periodic reporting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

[rabs]

7. For you folks who have your thumb on events in Cuba

What do you make of this? I found it to be an odd statement. :shrug:


(caps are mine.)

-------------------

Over the space of an hour, boleros, ballads, son songs and elegies conceived through the sensibility and artistic vocation of the determined and loyal combatant, THE COMMANDER OF THE REVOLUTION, TO WHOM THE PEOPLE BADE FAREWELL ON HIS PASSAGE TOWARDS IMMORTALITY.

(English)
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2009/octubre/mier14/raul-attends-concert.html


Durante una hora vibraron boleros, baladas, sones y elegías concebidas por la sensibilidad y la vocación artísticas del combatiente firme y leal, DEL COMANDANTE DE LA REVOLUCION, A QUIEN EL PUEBLO DESPIDIO EN SU TRANSITO HACIA LA IMORTALIDAD.

(Spanish)
http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2009/octubre/mier14/asistio.html