TV Marti exec gets prison in fraud case

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In the ongoing scandals involving U.S. government efforts to broadcast anti-Castro propaganda to Cubans, a senior executive of TV Marti drew a 27-month prison sentence in federal court in Miami Wednesday for bilking the taxpayer-funded operation of at least $112,000.

Jose M. Miranda also must pay $8,000 in fines for orchestrating kickbacks from a production contractor, Perfect Image Film and Video Productions, during his five-year stint as programming director.

TV and Radio Marti, both funded and operated by the U.S. government’s Office of Cuba Broadcasting, have been the subject of fierce criticism and debate in Latin America as well as in the United States. The broadcasts cost U.S. taxpayers tens of millions each year and seldom reach their target audience: Cuba’s 11 million people.

Cuban President Fidel Castro’s Communist regime jams the TV signal, and costly efforts to beam it from airborne U.S. military planes have also failed to get the programming into many Cuban households. Even those who can receive it tend to see the programs as amateurish and turn the channel in favor of livelier and less politically oriented programs from Mexican satellite providers.

Castro has railed against the intrusions into his country’s airwaves as imperialistic and aimed at inciting insurrection.

The Miami-based production and broadcast services are staffed by scores of anti-Castro Cuban exiles who keep pressure on the Bush administration to maintain harsh sanctions on Cuba.

Posted by Carol J. Williams in Miami