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Case dropped against Milwaukeeans
who visit Cuba
Associated Press. Posted
on Wed, Dec. 01, 2004 in the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel.
MILWAUKEE - Milwaukeeans have expressed
relief that the federal government has agreed
to dismiss, without fines or penalties,
the case against them for traveling to Cuba
on a church mission without a license.
"It's been looming over our heads
for five years," Dollora Greene-Evans
said of word that a settlement had been
signed by Administrative Law Judge Robert
L. Barton Jr. in Washington, D.C.
She, along with William Ferguson Jr. and
Theron Mills, faced an administrative hearing
and possible fines of $7,500 each or more
in connection with a 1999 trip to Cuba.
"I never thought it would come out
like this. I'm very pleased," Greene-Evans
said.
Mills said the three were delighted.
"I would love to go back to Cuba,
but there are other places I would also
like to go, like Spain and Portugal."
The trio was among six members of the Central
United Methodist Church who went to Havana
to mark the 100th anniversary of its sister
congregation, Iglesia Metodista Central
de Trinidad.
The federal government contended the three
violated the Cuban Assets Control Regulation
because they spent U.S. money in Cuba without
the necessary license from the U.S. government.
The three agreed as part of the settlement
to drop their counterclaims against the
government, said Art Heitzer, an attorney
involved in the case.
The three had contended in their counterclaim
that the government was interfering with
the right to practice religion and had engaged
in selective prosecution because Greene-Evans
and Ferguson are black. Mills is white.
Shayana Kadidal, a lawyer for the Center
for Constitutional Rights in New York who
also worked on the case, said it is highly
unusual for such cases to be dismissed without
at least a fine.
"We don't know of any other case that
was dismissed for nothing," he said
Tuesday.
Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise
said the department does not comment on
individual cases.
Information
from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com
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