3 men held in migrant death

Posted on Tue, Jul. 11, 2006

KEY WEST
3 men held in migrant death
Three smuggling suspects face charges in the death of a 24-year-old
Cuban woman as some family members of Cuban rafters insist the Coast
Guard is to blame for her death.
BY CAMMY CLARK, OSCAR CORRAL AND STEPHANIE GARRY
cclark@MiamiHerald.com

Smuggling suspect Rolando Gonzalez-Delgado, in a gray jumpsuit and
handcuffs, yelled defiantly in Spanish as he was led into federal court
Monday that the U.S. Coast Guard was at fault for the death of a
24-year-old Cuban woman.

''Their boat rammed us,'' he said.

But the government blames Gonzalez-Delgado, Heinrich Castillo-Diaz and
Yamil Gonzalez-Rodriguez for smuggling 31 people out of Cuba and
refusing to stop their crowded 36-foot boat when spotted by the Coast
Guard on Saturday. The go-fast boat stopped four miles south of Boca
Chica after the Coast Guard fired two shots into an engine.

Amay Machado Gonzalez died not of bullet wounds but of numerous trauma
injuries on her extremities, chest, back and head, said Dr. Michael
Hunter, Monroe County medical examiner, who declined to elaborate until
the investigation is completed.

Coast Guard officials say the suspected smugglers' ''recklessness and
disregard for human life'' caused Machado Gonzalez's death.

The three men sat stoically Monday in front of Magistrate Judge Lurana
S. Snow, who read the complaint against them for conspiring to encourage
illegal entry into the United States, resulting in a death. The offense
can carry the death penalty.

RELATIVES' PLEA

Teary relatives of the migrants, who were being questioned by the Coast
Guard on a cutter at sea, pleaded for them to remain in the United States.

Some said the three men were good Samaritans who did not receive money
for their efforts.

Juliet Hernandez, the five-month pregnant migrant who was hospitalized
and released Saturday, said the migrants' boat wouldn't stop because
they were so close to freedom.

Eddie Dominguez, a relative of Machado Gonzalez, said the family drove
down to the Keys on Monday to view her body but were turned away because
of guardianship issues.

Now the family hopes that her husband, Agustin Uralde, 24, who is being
held on the Coast Guard cutter, will be able to come ashore if she is
buried in the United States.

''Regardless of the situation, I'm sure he would at least like to say
good-bye to his wife,'' Dominguez said.

The government plans to ask at the detention hearing, tentatively
scheduled for Friday, that the men not be given bond because they are a
flight risk.

William Barzee, assistant federal public defender, urged Judge Snow to
issue an order mandating that the Coast Guard could not repatriate the
29 migrants until defense attorneys have the opportunity to interview
them as witnesses.

Because the migrants failed to make it to U.S. soil, they most likely
will be returned to Cuba under the ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy. No one
involved has been repatriated yet.

Smuggling rings often try to convince a few people with relatives in
Cuba to run the mission in exchange for a free trip for their family
members, said Steven Amster, a criminal attorney who defended two
smugglers in a 2005 case where a 6-year-old drowned.

Unless the defense can show that most of the migrants are related to the
smugglers, the family-reunification argument is unlikely to stick,
Amster said.

All the government must show, Amster said, is that the suspects' actions
caused Machado Gonzalez's death. Prosecutors can argue the suspects
overloaded the boat, sped it through four-foot waves and refused to stop
at the Coast Guard's command.

''These cases are impossible to defend,'' Amster said. ``It's such a
simple matter for them to prove.''

BOAT WAS SPEEDING

Capt. P.J. Heyl, the Coast Guard commander at Section Key West, said
Sunday that the 32-foot boat, crammed with 34 people, had been traveling
at speeds up to 45 mph in the choppy seas of its voyage.

Little is known about the smuggling suspects.

When Yamil Gonzalez-Rodriguez was asked by the judge how he planned to
retain counsel, he said in Spanish: ``I say my family, because I arrived
in the United States (Sunday) and I don't really know much about the
country.''

A leading human rights organization in Cuba publicly denounced the
incident, comparing the Coast Guard's tactics with those used by the
Cuban government when trying to stop migrants from fleeing the island.

''It's unacceptable that they fire weapons of war against a small
unarmed boat,'' said Elizardo Sánchez, of the Cuban Commission on Human
Rights and National Reconciliation.

''They need another way to detain those who violate the law,'' Sánchez
said by phone from Havana. ``We understand she did not die from the
gunshot wounds, but she did die as a result of that incident.''

Ramón Saúl Sánchez, leader of the Democracy Movement in Miami, said the
government should release an unedited tape of the chase and allow the
migrants to testify.

Rebeca Croes, the twin sister of one of the go-fast boat's passengers,
Morelia Croes, said her sister and several friends made a makeshift
vessel and tried to leave Cuba on it. But it started sinking outside
Cuban waters. She said the smuggling suspects happened to see the
sinking boat on an unspecified day and rescued them.

''They did the work of the Coast Guard,'' Croes said. ``I don't even
have furniture in my living room. I sleep in the same bed as my
daughter. It's not as if I had enough money to pay someone.''

For Arturo Conde, news of the smuggling operation was terrifying at
first. He said his daughter, Odalys Conde, 40, and her two children were
on the boat. When he heard an unidentified woman had been killed, he
feared it was his daughter.

''She's been wanting to leave Cuba for a long time,'' he said of his
daughter.

``If they send them back to Cuba, Fidel Castro will take her daughters
away from her.''

Reporter Frances Robles, researcher Monika Z. Leal and Miami Herald news
partner CBS4 contributed to this report.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15010006.htm