Published Friday, February 1, 2002 in
The Miami Herald
Coast Guards returns 27 Cuban migrants
MIAMI -- (AP) -- The U.S. Coast Guard returned 27 Cuban migrants to the
communist country Thursday.
The Coast Guard intercepted the migrants Monday after learning that a
29-foot (8.7-meter) boat was disabled 16 miles (25 kilometers) southwest of Key
West.
The migrants -- 15 men, eight women and four children -- were taken into
custody and transferred to U.S. Border Patrol agents Tuesday. Two suspected
smugglers also were taken into custody and later transferred into Border Patrol
custody.
Following interviews, the Immigration and Naturalization Service determined
the undocumented migrants should be repatriated. Cubans who reach American soil
generally are allowed to stay while those intercepted at sea are repatriated.
The Coast Guard picked up more than 1,900 Cuban migrants last year.
Pizza pilot pleads guilty in Cuba case
By Luisa Yanez. lyanez@herald.com.
A Pizza Hut deliveryman who stole a Cessna from a Florida Keys flight school
last year and crash-landed on a rocky Cuban beach unexpectedly pleaded guilty in
Miami federal court on Thursday.
Milo John Reese, 56, made a deal with prosecutors which calls for him to
serve six months in prison, followed by three years probation. In exchange, he
pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully transporting a stolen aircraft in
foreign commerce. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Reese faced as much as a
year in prison.
Upon his sentencing U.S. Attorney Guy A. Lewis said: "We are committed
to ensuring the safety of our air space and will prosecute those who put it in
jeopardy.''
Reese has been held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami since he was
returned from Cuba Aug. 8, a week after the incident.
He will be given credit for time served, said U.S. Attorney's Office
spokeswoman Aloyma Sanchez.
As part of the plea deal, U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King said Reese
must also pay $45,000 in restitution for damage he caused to the Cessna 172
during what he called his first solo flight. The money is to be paid to the
insurance company of Marathon-based Paradise Aviation.
"That's a lot of pizzas he'll have to deliver to pay the money back,''
said Paradise's assistant manager, Brad Neat, on Thursday. The Cessna 172, he
said, remains in Cuba and is now the property of the insurance company.
The plea deal struck with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kim Selmore and Michael
Brown means Reese will not be tried in court.
The case began July 31, when Reese's flight instructor at Paradise gave him
permission to take off in the Cessna from Marathon airport, loop around the
airport and land.
Instead, Reese, still wearing his pizza deliveryman uniform, flew the
single-engine airplane away from the airport. Then, sounding frightened, Reese
called his instructor over the radio saying his hands were cold and he could not
fly the plane. At first, authorities believed they had a pilot who had frozen at
the controls.
Reese crash-landed more than 100 miles away on a beach in Cuba, flipping the
plane over on the rocky sand. Assistant U.S. Public Defender Celeste Higgins had
told a federal judge Reese had not meant to steal the plane but flew to Cuba
after panicking mid-flight.
Reese was briefly hospitalized on the island while U.S. and Cuban officials
began negotiating his return.
Authorities quickly learned that Reese had a troubled past. He had made
headlines years earlier as an anti-brothel crusader who faked his own death in
his hometown of Reno, Nev.
Reese's wife told Monroe County authorities that he had bipolar mood
disorder and had left home in the past. He had arrived in the Florida Keys weeks
before his flight and had been living out of his car before landing the delivery
job at a Pizza Hut across the street from the Marathon airport.
While in prison in Miami, Reese participated briefly in a Florida Keys
educational crusade, writing letters to the Keynoter newspaper.
Copyright 2002 Miami Herald | 
