Accused spy for Cuba drowning in U.S. debt

By DAVID LYONS
Herald Staff Writer

One of the alleged spies for communist Cuba is guilty of a bad American habit, a federal prosecutor disclosed Friday.

While Alejandro Alonso purportedly tried to shield his children from the ``deformities'' of capitalist society, he ran up $30,000 in credit card debts, recently completed a trip through U.S. bankruptcy court and is losing his home in a foreclosure action.

Computer diskettes seized by federal agents showed that Alonso, a boat captain and U.S. citizen born in Des Moines, Iowa, is highly critical of American society, Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller said.

He is accused of infiltrating the exile Democracy Movement, reporting on its protest flotillas near Cuban waters. When he communicated with his alleged Cuban spy handler, Manuel Viramontes, Alonso signed his reports, ``Motherland or Death.''

Alonso and Viramontes are among 10 people arrested last weekend, accused of attempting to gather information for Cuba from U.S. military bases and to infiltrate anti-Castro exile groups.

As Alonso's wife wept and shook her head repeatedly during her husband's bail hearing in Miami federal court, Miller constructed a picture of a man who distrusted American society while professing loyalty to the regime of Fidel Castro. While reporting to Viramontes, Alonso talked of a need to protect his children from ``social deformities'' in the United States.

This prompted U.S. Magistrate Barry Garber to ask if ``one has a right to live here and not like this country.''

The prosecutor agreed that the right exists. But she added that Alonso's case poses a different set of circumstances.

In fact, she said, Alonso, 40, had seen service as a captain in Cuba's merchant marine, piloting oil tankers to Libya and the Pacific. Moreover, she said Alonso has a brother who was recently convicted in Miami of drug smuggling and, facing a prison term of more than 12 years, jumped bail and fled the jurisdiction.

Defense lawyer Stuart Adelstein complained that the government's sole source of information about his client came from hundreds of computer diskettes that the FBI seized when its agents rounded up the 10 spy suspects last weekend.

Citizenship cited

Adelstein noted that Alonso is an American citizen, whose relatives and children are all in Miami. Alonso, who is on his second marriage, has a 20-month-old daughter with his present wife.

``Quite candidly, I think it is a close call,'' Garber said. Alonso and his co-defendants, the judge said, ``go to the very heart of this nation.''

The judge had less trouble keeping another co-defendant, Ruben Campa, in prison pending trial.

Garber ruled after Assistant U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis noted that Campa, identified by the FBI as a Cuban intelligence officer, is the third defendant in the case to be using a fake identity. The prosecutor said it's based on a 1965 birth certificate of a 7-month-old infant boy who died in San Antonio, Texas.

Lewis also said that when Campa was arrested, agents found notes in his wallet reflecting aircraft counts taken by Antonio Guerrero, another co-defendant who worked as a maintenance man at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Boca Chica, near Key West.

The notes contained an aircraft tally of 18 F-18s, six F-14s and 10 F-5s -- all fighter jets -- as well as four E-2 surveillance planes.

Knew `entire scope'

``This defendant has known of the entire scope of the operation,'' Lewis told the judge.

He said Campa was brought in to help another co-defendant, Luis Medina, code-named ``Allan,'' leave the country after his portable computer was stolen in Los Angeles with incriminating information on it.

The remaining co-defendants in the case are scheduled to have their bond hearings next week. All of them are being held on the strength of a criminal complaint filed by the FBI. The government has until Sept. 28 to bring an indictment against the group.

From testimony and observations of defense lawyers this week, the government has a long way to go before its case is fully developed. Mark de Almeida, the FBI agent who has been testifying for the government during the bond hearings, testified that many computer diskettes have yet to be deciphered. Meanwhile, defense attorneys seeking information must submit to security clearances before they will be permitted to view documents collected by investigators.

Said Miami attorney Paul McKenna, who represents Viramontes: ``This is one of these cases where it will be a long time before much is known about the evidence.''