MIAMI
Cuba sends fugitive to face U.S. justice after 4 decades
A man wanted in the Tampa area for fraud since 1965 was located in Cuba
and put on a plane to Miami, where he was promptly arrested.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
More than four decades ago, when the United States and Cuba were
emerging from the twin shocks of the Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs
invasion, Joseph Adjmi was convicted in Tampa of mail-fraud charges --
but he vanished before he was to begin his 10-year sentence in the
federal penitentiary.
Adjmi, now 70, turned up in Miami on Wednesday, a thin man shackled and
handcuffed -- a prisoner and no longer a fugitive after the Cuban
government put him on a plane and sent him home to finally begin serving
his U.S. sentence.
Adjmi thus joined a short list of fugitives returned by the Cuban
government over the last four decades of communist rule under Fidel
Castro. It was the second return of a fugitive since Fidel's brother
Raúl temporarily took over the government in Havana after Fidel stepped
down for intestinal surgery. The first was David Ray Franklin, who
allegedly stole a plane in Marathon and flew to Cuba with his young son
last year. He was returned Oct. 27.
CUBAN REFUSALS
In the past, some of those returned included accused airplane hijackers.
But Cuba has refused to turn over dozens of federal fugitives that
successive U.S. administrations say have enjoyed Cuban protection.
They include people like convicted murderer and pro-black militant
Joanne Chesimard, fugitive financier and convicted swindler Robert
Vesco, and former CIA officer and convicted arms dealer Frank Terpil.
Federal authorities also would like to talk to former CIA officer Philip
Agee, who revealed the identities of CIA operatives and defected to Cuba.
The rare return of a federal fugitive by Cuba was not a surprise to U.S.
authorities, who were contacted by the Cuban government in early 2006
and told Adjmi would be deported at the end of his detention in Cuba. He
had been in prison in Cuba serving an undetermined sentence for
unspecified alleged scams apparently similar to the ones he was charged
with in Tampa, but U.S. officials in Miami had no other details.
ARRIVING IN THE U.S.
On arrival, Adjmi was turned over to the U.S. Marshals Service and
arrested under a 1965 warrant issued by a Tampa federal court.
''We work very closely with the U.S. Marshals Service in bringing back
fugitives from justice all over the world,'' said Edgar Moreno, special
agent in charge at the Miami field office of the Diplomatic Security
Service. ``That arrest warrant is still pretty much active.''
Adjmi, wearing a white T-shirt, dark pants and tennis shoes, was taken
to Jackson Memorial Hospital from MIA because he complained of feeling
ill. CBS 4 video showed Adjmi being carried by security to a van.
Moreno said he was not aware of any attorney representing Adjmi.
FORMER DEFENSE TEAM
The three attorneys who represented Adjmi in the original case -- Alvin
Malnik, Jacob Kossman and Frank Ragano -- were once prominent in
Florida. They were known as lawyers who defended organized crime figures.
Ragano, for example, once represented Jimmy Hoffa and Santo Trafficante.
Kossman died in 1989 and Ragano in 1998.
Malnik, who recently was listed living in Palm Beach County, could not
be reached for comment.
Reporter Brian Andrews of WFOR-CBS4, The Miami Herald's news partner,
contributed to this article.
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