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Putting the pinch on tyrants'
finances
Posted on Tue, Oct. 03,
2006 in The Miami Herald.
The families of Thomas ''Pete'' Ray and
Howard F. Anderson have suffered greatly
since the two men were unjustly executed
by Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion
in April 1962. Having won wrongful-death
lawsuits in federal court, both families
should be able to collect the $88.5 million
in compensatory damages awarded them from
Cuba's frozen assets in the United States.
This is why Office Max's attempt to block
the families' payment is disheartening.
Mr. Anderson was shot by a Cuban firing
squad after a summary trial. His widow,
Dorothy Anderson McCarthy of Pompano Beach,
and four children were awarded $67 million
in damages in 2003.
Compensatory damages
Mr. Ray, a CIA pilot, was shot down during
the invasion, but he survived. On orders
of the Castro regime, he was executed with
a shot to the head. Then his body was kept
in a Havana morgue for 18 years. Janet Weininger,
Mr. Ray's daughter in Palmetto Bay, won
$21.5 million in compensatory damages. ''It's
devastating to me that an American company
would do this to other Americans who died
in service to their country,'' she says.
The two families sued to collect damages
from Cuban assets frozen in U.S. banks since
the 1960s. Similarly, relatives of the murdered
Brothers to the Rescue fliers and Ana Margarita
Martínez, the jilted wife of a Cuban
spy, won lawsuits in court and already have
collected damages from Cuba's frozen funds.
The Ray and Anderson families should be
no different.
In this case, Office Max has filed to stop
payment based on its property claim for
the Cuban Electric Company, which was confiscated
by Cuba in the 1960s. Of 5,911 claims certified
by the U.S. government's Cuban Claims Program
in the 1970s, Office Max's claim is the
largest. Altogether those claims are now
estimated to be worth nearly $7 billion.
Loss of life
Office Max has questioned the validity
of the families' federal judgments and argued
that the Cuban funds should cover property
claims. Yet those businesses already have
recouped some of their losses through U.S.
tax deductions.
The Cuban property claims, certified through
an administrative process, received less
scrutiny than the judgments and damage awards
decided by federal judges after lengthy
U.S. court processes. Cuba could have defended
itself in court, but chose not to.
In the U.S. legal system, compensation
for loss of life takes precedence over property
claims. In cases like Mr. Ray's and Mr.
Anderson's, in which tyrants commit heinous
abuses, the higher principle is clear. Wrongful-death
judgments in civil trials are a measure
of justice. Collecting damages is one way
to punish despots and, hopefully, deter
such crimes in the future.
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