Former Cuban spy may lose psychology license

CUBAN SPY
Former Cuban spy may lose psychology license
A Cuban-American psychologist who admitted providing Cuba with
information on Miami exiles may lose his Fla. psychology license.
Posted on Sun, Feb. 03, 2008
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

Florida's surgeon general has filed a complaint with the state Board of
Psychology against Carlos Alvarez, a psychologist and former Florida
International University professor convicted of conspiring to act as an
unregistered agent for Cuba.

The administrative complaint is being reviewed by the department's
attorneys before it goes to the board, said Eulinda Jackson, a
spokeswoman for Ana Viamonte Ros, the state surgeon general and Florida
health secretary. Viamonte Ros complaint, filed in December, asks the
board to consider penalties against Alvarez, including revocation or
suspension of his license, limiting of his practice, a fine or a reprimand.

Viamonte Ros told the board in the eight-page complaint that Alvarez
violated rules of his profession for being convicted and failing to
advise the board of his guilty plea in a timely manner.

Steven Chaykin, Alvarez's attorney, said the complaint will have no
impact on his client, because he did not practice psychology.

''Anyone who has a professional license and is convicted of a felony
goes through a similar bureaucratic administrative process,'' said
Chaykin. ``Though a suspension or revocation of his license is
embarrassing, he did absolutely nothing wrong with his license . . . He
didn't practice psychology. He did not have patients.''

Over the years, Alvarez taught diversity workshops in school districts
and conducted psychological screenings of cadets for the city of Miami
and Miami-Dade County police departments.

Alvarez and his wife Elsa, both former FIU academics, apologized at
their sentencing hearing Feb. 27 for giving Cuba information on Miami's
exile community.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore sentenced Carlos Alvarez to the
maximum five-year prison sentence for conspiring to act as an
unregistered Cuban agent and Elsa Alvarez to the maximum three years'
imprisonment for failing to report her husband's intelligence work.

Viamonte Ros wrote in the complaint that Florida laws require that a
psychologist be disciplined if convicted of a crime that relates to the
practice of the profession.

''A health care practitioner who manifests such complete and reckless
disregard for the law as respondent demonstrated by his activities as an
agent of a foreign government cannot be entrusted with the
responsibility associated with the practice of psychology,'' Viamonte
Ros wrote.

Gov. Charlie Crist named Viamonte Ros, a Cuban American, secretary of
the Florida Department of Health in January 2007. In July, she became
the first State Surgeon General.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/404365.html