In a sentencing re-hearing in Miami federal court, United States District Judge Joan Lenard re-sentenced one of the five men convicted in what has become known as the "Cuban Five" case. A federal appellate court issued an opinion declaring the sentence illegal and the remanded the case back to the U.S. district court for sentencing. The appellate court ruled that the government failed to prove that Antonio Guerrero actually traded in "top secret" intelligence. A well-known Miami criminal lawyer represented Guerrero at the sentencing hearing.
Guerrero was convicted in 2001, along with four other defendants in federal court for spying on anti-Castro Cuban exiles. At trial, the government proved that the five defendants infiltrated numerous anti-Cuban political organizations such as Brothers to the Rescue. Brothers to the Rescue is an anti-Castro group that made regular flights over Cuba to drop leaflets. The Cuban government has routinely said that the five men were in the United States to protect Castro and the Cuban government from individuals seeking to topple the Cuban government. Guerrero is a United States citizen and was working at the Key West Naval Air Station at the time of the alleged offenses.
After a lengthy federal court trial in 2001, Guerrero was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. Judge Lenard re-sentenced Guerrero to 262 months in federal prison in accordance with the court of appeals ruling. With the sentence reduction, he will be eligible to leave prison in approximately seven years. The Miami criminal attorney representing Guerrero was quoted as saying, "It was odd, you have a man who was on a military base but who didn't take a single classified document and noone testified that he injured U.S. national security, but the judge still rejected the prosecutors' request to lighten the sentence." Two of the other defendants are scheduled to be re-sentenced later this year or early next year.
Judge Reduces Sentence for One of Cuban Five, The New York Times, October 13, 2009.
