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Posted on Wed, Jan. 31, 2007



3 migrant smugglers get 12-year prison terms

BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

Three men were sentenced to 12 years in prison today for conspiring last summer to smuggle Cuban migrants to the United States in an operation in which one migrant died during a high-seas chase.

The defendants -- Amil Gonzalez, Heinrich Castillo and Rolando Gonzalez -- received sentences that were harsher than the federal sentencing guidelines, which called for six years in prison.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore said he imposed the longer sentence to send a message to other smugglers.

A jury last October found Gonzalez guilty of smuggling but had acquitted him of the more serious charges involving the death of a woman during the high-seas chase.

Before the trial, Castillo and Rolando Gonzalez each pleaded guilty to their roles in the deadly smuggling sea trip, in which 34 people were crammed into a go-fast boat made for nine. They were charged with 68 counts of smuggling.

Anay Machado, 24, one of the migrants the boat picked up off the Cuban coast on July 8, sustained fatal head injuries during a 30-minute, high-speed race in choppy waters. The boat was trying to outrun the Coast Guard to the Keys.

Castillo, 28, and Rolando Gonzalez navigated the boat from Key Largo to pick up the migrants in Cuba.

The case featured an unusual move: All migrants interdicted at sea in the incident were brought to U.S. soil on July 19 to serve as material witnesses.

At the time, the federal government said the migrants' testimony before a grand jury or at trial would be crucial. While such testimony helped get an indictment and led to the convictions of two smugglers, no migrants testified at the trial.

The government's main evidence against Amil Gonzalez was a video showing him standing at the center console of the boat with the two other smugglers and appearing to gesture toward another migrant. The government said Amil Gonzalez was directing the man to act as a human shield in front of the engines, which a Coast Guard gunner ultimately disabled with two shots.

Amil Gonzalez also gave authorities a false name -- that of his identical twin brother living in Miami -- and two false addresses, the same addresses used by Rolando Gonzalez.

He also gave the U.S. Coast Guard the finger.