Winners in suits against Cuba stuck in tangle of frozen assets

By Curt Anderson, AP Legal Affairs writer
January 14, 2007

MIAMI (AP) — The day a judge awarded her family $400 million in damages for Cuba's execution by firing squad of her brother, Jeannette Hausler said his death had been vindicated. "We have found justice," she said.

But now comes the hard part for Hausler and other family members of Robert Fuller, a U.S. citizen who owned a plantation in Cuba and was tortured and killed Oct. 16, 1960.



They will try to identify Cuban assets frozen in U.S. bank accounts in an effort to collect any money after the Dec. 14 court ruling.

"How much is there is not clear. The banks are very coy about telling you how much is there, because they don't want to get sued by the Cuban government," said Alfonso Perez, one of the Fuller family's attorneys. "Are we going to try to get some of those assets? Absolutely."

Fidel Castro's serious illness raises another possibility: after his death, Cuba might seek normalized trade and diplomatic relations with the United States, opening an avenue for the Fuller family and others who have won judgments against Cuba to get their money directly from Havana. Castro temporarily relinquished power to his brother, Raul, in July.

"If Cuba wants to be part of the world economic community, if they want to have investments in the U.S. or have U.S. companies invest, I think they are going to have to deal with these judgments one way or another," said Joseph DeMaria, who represents families of two other men killed by the Castro government in 1961.

DeMaria was part of a legal team that in 2006 persuaded a federal judge in New York to order payment of $91 million from frozen Cuban accounts held by JP Morgan Chase Bank to families of two men who died after the failed, CIA-backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

The money came from accounts frozen originally during the Kennedy administration, including one containing Cuban payments made to AT&T. The payouts were made to the families of Howard F. Anderson, who was executed for smuggling arms into Cuba, and Thomas "Pete" Ray, a CIA pilot who was shot down during the Bay of Pigs operation.

Both families had won lawsuits against Cuba in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court. In both cases, Cuba did not answer the allegations in the lawsuits or defend itself, which is its common practice whenever the Castro government is sued in the United States.

The cases wound up before a New York federal judge because OfficeMax, through a merger with another U.S. company, asserted property claims for the Cuban Electric Co. that was confiscated by Cuba in the 1960s. OfficeMax raised questions about the validity of the Miami judgments and argued that the money should cover its claims first.

Last week, Cuba's foreign ministry issued a statement through state-run newspapers accusing the United States of robbing the Havana government of its assets and saying it does not recognize the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

Still, it takes years and a great deal of lawyer time to tap into the Cuban accounts, and the banks resist paying out any money for a variety of reasons, including disputes over whether Cuba or a U.S. company is a deposit's lawful owner.

Some people who have won cases have had less success in collecting, including Ana Margarita Martinez, who was awarded $27 million in 2001 after claiming that Cuba arranged her marriage to Juan Pablo Roque so he could infiltrate and allegedly spy on Miami's exile groups.

President Bush in 2005 ordered the Treasury Department to give Margarita Martinez almost $200,000 out of Cuban accounts, far less than her total judgment. Bush cited a 2002 terrorism insurance law as authority for that move.

At the end of 2005, there was $268.3 million in Cuban assets frozen in U.S. bank accounts, according to the most recent Treasury Department report. Cuba also faces an estimated $7 billion in claims by U.S. corporations and individuals for seizure of property and other assets after the 1959 revolution led by Castro.

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