Miami man convicted of smuggling migrants to Florida Keys
The Associated Press
Posted November 3 2006, 6:09 PM EST
KEY WEST -- A Miami man has been convicted of smuggling 24 Cubans aboard
a go-fast boat into the Florida Keys, federal prosecutors said Friday.
A Key West jury on Wednesday found Albert Pina-Suarez guilty on 25
counts of alien smuggling and failure to heave to law enforcement
officers who ordered him to stop, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
No sentencing hearing has been scheduled. Messages left at the office
and cell phone of Pina-Suarez's attorney were not immediately returned.
The U.S. Coast Guard spotted the go-fast boat about 35 miles south of
Key West on May 4, and intercepted the vessel about 6 miles south of
Summerland Key, prosecutors said.
Pina-Suarez was driving the boat, and refused to yield to authorities.
He led authorities on a chase for nearly an hour before running aground
at Pye Key, an uninhabited mangrove island 24 miles east of Key West,
prosecutors said.
Twenty-three Cuban nationals jumped off the boat when it ran aground,
leaving one migrant with a broken leg in the vessel. Pina-Suarez
attempted to flee in his boat, but became stranded on a sandbar and was
apprehended, prosecutors said.
All 24 migrants were interviewed and processed by U.S. Customs and
Border Patrol agents. Under the United States' ``wet-foot/dry-foot''
policy, most Cubans who reach U.S. soil are allowed to remain and seek
American residency, while those intercepted at sea are generally sent home.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-1103miamismuggling,0,1220277.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba
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