Published Friday, March 24, 2000, in the Miami Herald
U.S. :Cuba spy charges overstated
Evidence points to lesser offense by employee of INS, officials concede
By Alfonso Chardy . achardy@herald.com
The U.S. government now concedes that immigration official Mariano Faget may not be a Cuban spy after all.
Investigators acknowledge that they have filed no evidence in court showing that Faget, a veteran Immigration and Naturalization Service officer with access to secret files, passed secrets to Cuban officials.
They also concede that the title of the FBI's original press release announcing Faget's arrest -- Operation False Blue Cuban Spy Case -- may have been misleading, creating the impression that Faget was suspected of spying for Fidel Castro's government.
``The title does not reflect the facts of the case at this time,'' said Terry Nelson, a local FBI spokesman. ``The title does reflect the violation of the Espionage Act, and to a lay person, espionage and spying are synonymous.''
Investigators point out that Faget still is accused of serious crimes under the Espionage Act -- revealing classified information to an unauthorized person and meeting without authorization with Cuban officials believed to be intelligence operatives.
``This is not a drug offense or some arguably victimless crime. This is one of the most serious offenses known to the law against the government and the people of the United States,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Curtis B. Miner told a recent court hearing.
If convicted, Faget faces between 5 and 10 years in federal prison.
But there is no evidence currently on file that any secrets were given to Cuban officials, a senior law enforcement official familiar with the case said.
Richard Gregorie, senior litigation counsel at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, declined to address the issue on the record.
``This is a matter in ongoing litigation, and we won't comment on it,'' Gregorie said.
The case stems from a two-minute telephone call that Faget made to a friend after being told by Miami's top FBI official that a Cuban intelligence officer whom Faget knew was about to defect.
FABRICATED `SECRET'
Hector Pesquera, special agent in charge of the Miami FBI office, deliberately concocted the story to test whether Faget could keep a secret. He told Faget not to disclose the information because it was classified.
But only 12 minutes after Pesquera left his office, Faget telephoned childhood friend and business associate Pedro Font to advise him about the ``defection.''
Faget's call is at the heart of the chief charge: violating a section of the Espionage Act that prohibits ``communicating national defense information'' to people not authorized to receive it.
Faget was entitled to the information because he had a secret clearance. Font, a private citizen, did not.
Had Faget not called Font, according to the law enforcement official familiar with the case, the FBI might not have arrested him.
Faget is also facing charges of lying about the frequency of his contacts with Cuban officials and hiding from his INS superiors his involvement in a private company created to develop future business deals in Cuba.
Trial has been tentatively set for April 24.
`ERROR IN JUDGMENT'
Faget has pleaded not guilty. However, he has -- through his lawyer, Edward O'Donnell -- acknowledged the government's case while denying he was passing secrets to Cuba.
``The man, at most, made an error in judgment,'' O'Donnell told the court Feb. 24 when he failed to get his client out of jail on bond. ``He wasn't spying.''
The senior law enforcement official familiar with the case said Faget came to the FBI's attention during surveillance of Cuban government officials. FBI agents grew concerned when they realized one of the people meeting with the Cubans was a senior INS officer with a secret clearance.
The FBI began tracking Faget in December 1998 to determine whether he was a Cuban ``asset,'' an intelligence community term referring to people who carry out missions assigned by control officers from a foreign nation.
Over the next 12 months, FBI counterintelligence agents documented three meetings between Faget and Cuban officials -- two with Luis Molina and one with Jose Imperatori, both of whom were consular officers assigned to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington.
VOICE NOT RECORDED
Most of the meetings were videotaped but not audiotaped, and the FBI could not determine what Faget said to the Cubans.
The Cuban government newspaper Granma said Faget and Molina also met in May -- a meeting not listed in court files or acknowledged by Faget.
In a recent interview, Faget said he discussed possible future business deals in Cuba once Castro and the U.S. trade embargo were gone. Granma, however, said Faget also discussed ``unclassified'' immigration issues -- a claim that Faget denies.
A possible incentive for the meetings may have been a letter that household products maker Procter & Gamble had given America-Cuba, the Florida corporation in which Faget and Font were partners. The letter granted the company authority to act as its Cuba representative once the U.S. trade
embargo was lifted.
LAPSE OF MEMORY
The FBI said Faget's last contact with the Cubans was a Dec. 14 phone call between him and Imperatori -- a call that Faget says he does not remember.
Between Dec. 14 and early February, the FBI debated what to do next -- whether to order Faget to stop meeting with the Cubans or test whether he was leaking secrets.
The FBI decided to test him.
``The strategy . . . was to give him some information and test him, see what he'd do with it,'' the official said.
Pesquera, FBI agent in charge in Miami, contacted top INS officials, briefed them on Faget's activities and enlisted their cooperation.
James Goldman, INS assistant district director, contacted Faget and told him to attend a meeting with Pesquera at INS headquarters at Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast 79th Street at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 11.
It was at that meeting that Pesquera revealed to Faget that Molina was planning to ``defect'' and that Faget revealed to Pesquera that he knew Molina from a previous ``dinner'' in Miami.
CAUGHT IN A FIB
Pesquera, who knew Faget had met Molina more than once, asked whether that was the only contact.
``That's the only contact,'' Faget replied.
Twelve minutes after Pesquera and Goldman left, Faget picked up his cellular telephone and called Font in New York. The FBI recorded the call.
Immediately after Faget's call, the FBI pondered its next move.
Faget was summoned to local FBI headquarters six days later, where agents confronted him with the evidence.
James Patrick Laflin, an FBI counterintelligence agent assigned to the case, said in court that the FBI viewed the Feb. 17 meeting as a chance for Faget to set the record straight -- at least on Molina.
``He was being provided an opportunity to describe the background of that meeting and the nature of it and the extent of his relationship with that individual,'' Laflin said.
Instead of disclosing all of his contacts, Faget ``continued to spin falsehood after falsehood,'' Miner, the federal prosecutor, told the court.
Faget was arrested that same day at FBI headquarters, largely because he continued to lie, the law enforcement official familiar with the case said.
``Since he was not truthful, it was better to arrest,'' the official said.
A few hours later, the FBI issued the Operation False Blue Cuban Spy Case press release.
Supreme Court Could Scuttle Miami-Dade Ban
Editorial . Published Friday, March 24, 2000, in the Miami Herald
If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Massachusetts' refusal to do business with companies that deal with the brutal military regime of Myanmar, the ruling could well kick the legs out from under a more-drastic Miami-Dade County ban aimed at punishing companies that deal in Cuba.
That would be a mixed blessing.
Such a ruling could nullify a flawed local policy that is too broad, has been irrationally applied and has hurt this community far more than it has damaged its intended target -- Cuba's totalitarian regime.
Yet county commissioners are right to seek to make a moral point through economic policy. They are responsible for spending the public's money. And to the extent that the public wants its money to be used to squeeze the Fidel Castro government, the policy is worthy.
Such was the case also when many localities across the country used the heft of such laws to protest apartheid in South Africa. So it is with Massachusetts and Myanmar (formerly Burma).
But those laws also were in harmony with policies encouraged by Congress and federal policy at the time. Miami-Dade's ordinance is not. It runs roughshod over both the Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits business with certain companies having Cuban interests, and the decades-old Cuban embargo,
which specifically exempts cultural exchanges.
The local ordinance has been used most regressively to lash out at any number of events featuring Cuban visual and performing artists and academic scholars. These are not business transactions with the Cuban government; they are exactly the types of people-to-people exchanges that weaken the
regime. Rather than making a solid moral declaration, the county has used its law to play foolishly into Castro's hands again and again.
How did Miami-Dade emerge victorious when it lost the Latin Grammy Awards and the Pan American Games? What was the ``win'' in pulling county funds last month from the Miami Film Festival, which featured a Cuban director's film that actually criticized the regime?
Massachusetts this week defended before the high court its 4-year-old, narrowly focused ban against Myanmar. If it's struck down, Miami-Dade's Cuba ban will almost certainly fall, too.
But even if the Massachusetts policy is upheld, Miami-Dade commissioners must not take it as a sign of blanket approbation. The Cuba ban remains a flawed and misused law that must change, with or without the Supreme Court's help.
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