May 5, 2000 in the Miami Herald
Rival campaigns helping to pay for lawyers in Elian case
By Alfonso Chardy And Jay Weaver. achardy@herald.com
While most of the 13 attorneys in the Elian Gonzalez custody case are working pro bono, two rival fund-raising campaigns pitting high-profile local contributors against a national church group have raised about $250,000 to fuel the legal battle.
Only one of the attorneys -- Gregory Craig, a high-powered Washington, D.C., lawyer who represents Elian's father -- is not working pro bono. He is said to be charging fees below his regular rate -- normally in the $500-an-hour range.
The dozen lawyers who represent Elian's Miami relatives are working pro bono, but their legal expenses are covered through a trust fund whose contributions exceed $200,000.
Who is paying for the legal teams and how has been a question of interest since the Miami family contacted the first attorney two days after Elian was plucked from the Atlantic Ocean near Fort Lauderdale Nov. 25.
Spencer Eig, a Miami Beach immigration lawyer, was recruited by Armando Gutierrez, the Miami family spokesman and media advisor.
Gutierrez knew Eig from Eig's unsuccessful bid in 1997 for the Miami Beach City Commission. Gutierrez, a well-known local political consultant, was a supporter but did not run Eig's campaign.
Eig began representing Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez when the Miami relatives realized that the boy's father in Cuba, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, sought the return of his son.
As the Elian case became complicated, the number of lawyers increased.
Besides Eig, the other attorneys in the Miami team are: Linda Osberg-Braun, Roger Bernstein, Kendall Coffey, Manuel Diaz, Barbara Lagoa, Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, Laura Fabar, Eduardo Rasco, Judd Goldberg, Eliot Pedrosa and Richard Sharpstein.
TEAM BUILDING
Eig, a former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service lawyer, enlisted Bernstein and Osberg-Braun -- two legal INS veterans.
But it was Gutierrez who helped assemble some of the other legal players.
``I was trying to put together a legal dream team to defend Elian,'' Gutierrez said, adding that he gets no salary and pays his own expenses.
Gutierrez approached Garcia-Pedrosa, former city manager in Miami and Miami Beach, who is a partner in the downtown law firm Ruden, McClosky.
At first, Garcia-Pedrosa said he did not want to get involved because he thought his services were not needed.
``But Armando said, `You have to do it,' '' Garcia-Pedrosa recalled. ``When Armando wants you, it's hard to say no.''
Garcia-Pedrosa then recruited other attorneys -- Rasco among them -- for the family court battle.
After the INS refused to consider Elian's asylum application because the boy's father wanted it withdrawn, the great-uncle sued the INS.
For that showdown, Gutierrez drafted Coffey, a former U.S. Attorney in Miami.
After the team's loss in federal court, Coffey's partner -- Diaz -- joined the group. He is a prominent lawyer in the Cuban-American Bar Association. Coffey and Diaz were in Gonzalez's house when armed federal agents seized Elian on April 22.
CONNECTED FIRM
Craig, the attorney representing Elian's father, works in the Washington firm of Williams & Connolly and helped coordinate President Clinton's defense during last year's impeachment proceedings. White House officials say Craig has not had contact with President Clinton on the Elian case.
Craig is charging fees, but the people who helped retain him said he agreed to lower them to an unspecified amount.
Precisely how much Craig normally charges is unclear. Gutierrez, the Miami family spokesman, claims Craig charges $850 an hour. But an article in The New York Times that profiled Craig April 4 said his firm's customary fees ranged between $400 and $500 an hour. Craig's office did not return
calls Monday and Tuesday.
The lawyers representing the Miami family normally charge fees ranging from $200 to $350 an hour, Coffey said.
For some of the attorneys in Miami, involvement in the Elian case has meant a ``considerable hardship'' in loss of regular income, Coffey said.
Coffey added that while he devotes time to the Elian case, some of the other lawyers in his 11-lawyer firm pick up cases he can't handle.
The Executive Committee of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society created a fund in March to obtain donations to pay Craig. The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, the board's general secretary, subsequently asked the National Council of Churches to assist in administering the fund.
United Methodist Church officials halted the fund-raising drive, which raised about $46,000, in response to complaints from leaders in the church's Miami District.
Fassett has said he and Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the council, hired Craig at the suggestion of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
The council has been involved in helping to reunify Elian with his father since last year.
DONATIONS HELPED
Money to pay for the Miami team's legal expenses comes from the Elian Gonzalez Defense Trust Fund that has taken in more than $200,000 since March, Gutierrez said.
People who have contributed to the Miami fund include Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas who gave $1,000 out of his reelection campaign chest and South Florida sugar industry tycoons Alfy and Pepe Fanjul, who chipped in $10,000. Spanish-language radio fund-raisers have spurred contributions from
ordinary citizens, primarily Cuban Americans.
Set up at Ocean Bank, where Lazaro Gonzalez's daughter Marisleysis works in the loan processing department, the fund is overseen by three trustees and a legal advisor -- Stan Levin of the Coral Gables law firm Levin & Andress. Levin said between $10,000 and $15,000 has been disbursed.
Coffey, one of the Miami attorneys, said the money has been used largely for copying and typing of documents, filing fees and some travel.
Coffey said he could not predict how much the case will end up costing.
Dulce Cuetara, one of the Miami fund trustees, said the fund is authorized to pay attorneys' fees of up to $70 an hour for court work and $50 an hour for out-of-court work. The amounts reflect established federal court system guidelines for hiring private attorneys, Cuetara said.
None of the Miami attorneys has billed any fees, she added.
Contributors are told to check with tax attorneys or accountants on whether donations are tax-deductible, Levin said.
United Methodist fund for Elian's dad draws fire
Miami church officials have complained about being shut out of decision process. Leaders of the church's Miami District -- where a third of 15,000 Methodists are Hispanic -- say the board showed insensitivity to Cuban exiles.
By D. Aileen Dodd. adodd@herald.com
United Methodist Church executives have been asked to visit Miami to cool tensions among Cuban-American Methodists angry that they were shut out of a volatile decision to raise money for Juan Miguel Gonzalez's legal expenses.
The fund-raising drive, organized by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, collected about $46,000 -- less than half its target amount -- before complaints prompted church officials to halt the effort.
Leaders of the church's Miami District -- where a third of 15,000 Methodists are Hispanic -- say the board showed insensitivity to Cuban exiles. They have invited the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the Board of Church and Society, to South Florida this month to meet with
local congregations.
``Our board had no prior consultation with us in Miami on an issue which dramatically impacts the lives of our Cuban-American congregations here,'' said the Rev. Clarke Campbell-Evans, Miami District superintendent. Since ``they did not do us the courtesy of coming ahead of time to listen, my
hope is that they will come and hear the reaction of Methodists in this part of the world.''
Fassett is expected to address the issue this week during the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, which is in session through May 12 in Cleveland. He has said the drive, which was open to church members and the public, was necessary to ensure that Juan Miguel Gonzalez would
receive ``equal representation under the law.''
Juan Miguel is the father of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban rafter found adrift off the Florida coast in November. Elian was reunited with his father near Washington, D.C., after a federal raid of Elian's Miami relatives' home in Little Havana April 22.
At Miami's Coral Way United Methodist Church, which has a flock of 160, some members feel betrayed by the fund-raiser.
By using the church's name to raise money ``it looks like the whole church is in support of this,'' said the Rev. Daniel Pelay, pastor of Coral Way. ``There are some leaders of the church who are trying to support the politics in Cuba instead of opening their hearts and minds to the exile
community here in the U.S. I am very concerned about that.''
CHURCH DISSENT
The Rev. Antonio Fernandez, pastor of Hispanic American United Methodist Church of Hialeah, agrees. His church of 200 members has participated in vigils for the Gonzalez family. A banner and a sign outside of its sanctuary reads: ``Here we pray for Elian.''
``We as Cubans know that boy is not going to be with his father in Cuba, he is going to be with Fidel Castro,'' said Fernandez, whose grown daughters were forced to work a farm in Cuba at age 11. ``We encourage people to pray for Elian every day.''
Though the denomination received complaints about the legal fund campaign from many Methodists nationwide, others sent donations. Opinions on the fund-raiser have varied within the Florida Conference, where there are 350,000 Methodists in 700 churches. In Tallahassee, the matter is barely
causing a peep.
NO MONEY DISBURSED
On April 19, with only half the target funds collected and controversy spreading, the Board of Church and Society transferred the money to the National Council of Churches' Gonzalez Fund. Carol Fouke, a council spokeswoman, said no money has been disbursed yet. She said it was council practice
not to release contributors' names.
The Methodist Church's own financial oversight agency had advised the Board of Church and Society that it had improperly launched the fund-raiser.
Fassett has said his board did nothing wrong. He said it simply kept a promise the church made to its Cuban counterpart when Elian arrived in Florida in November -- to do what it could to help reunite the boy with his father.
``We have to do and have done what we felt is the most moral and ethical thing in context of our own faith,'' Fassett said. ``Our principal goal was to get Elian back to his father. The genius of democracy, when it works, is that Juan Miguel Gonzalez can decide what he wants to do. He's in the
United States; he can stay here or he can go back.''
Still, Florida Conference Bishop Cornelius L. Henderson scolded the board for launching the campaign without consulting the members of the church.
``Our brothers and sisters in the Cuban-American community are insulted by the action of an agency of the church to which they have given their loyalty. We pray that they will know we share their pain, anguish and hurt. . . . This unilateral action is bringing considerable embarrassment to
United Methodists in Florida.''
Contributions to the NCC's Gonzalez Fund are not tax-deductible, Fouke said. |