Smugglers’ Prison Sentence Boosted Over Boy’s Death

A Miami federal judge sentenced two men to 10 years in prison -- the stiffest penalty available -- for an operation that ended in the drowning of a young Cuban boy.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore sentenced Alexander Gil Rodriguez, 25, and Luis Manuel Taboada Cabrera, 28, for trying to smuggle foreign nationals into the United States.

Gil Rodriguez and Taboada Cabrera pleaded guilty in November to picking up 29 people from a Cuban beach and attempting to transport them to the United States.

The U.S. Coast Guard detected their speedboat, which capsized as the men tried to evade capture. Trapped under the 33-foot vessel was Julian Villasuso Jr., 6, who was on the boat with his parents, Julian Villasuso and Maizy Hurtado.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Moore could have given the men five to six years in prison. He said he imposed a harsher sentence because the boy died during the pursuit. The judge said he also wanted to deter high-speed sea chases involving the Coast Guard and smugglers desperate to reach U.S. shores.

“We do have an increasing number of these kinds of cases,” Moore said.

Defense attorney Steven Amster called the boy’s death a tragedy but said his clients were not solely to blame.

Amster said a video recording of the Oct. 13, 2005, interdiction showed that a Coast Guard net thrown on the boat’s engine jerked the vessel back, causing several people to stand up and run to the front of the boat. That shift in weight, he said, led to the boat capsizing.

“There was a chase. The chase came to an end. No one had fallen over. Nothing had happened that would have led to the death of that boy,” Amster said.

Moore rebuked Amster for suggesting the Coast Guard should be held partly responsible.

“It’s all too easy while we sit in a courtroom, in a very antiseptic environment, to ignore the danger and risk that these Coast Guard officers undertake every day in the real world,” Moore said.

Before hearing his sentence, Taboada Cabrera apologized to the boy’s family and to the government.

“I’m really repentant about what happened,” he said in Spanish.

U.S. officials allowed Villasuso and Hurtado, who buried their son in Florida, to remain in the country. The Coast Guard returned the remaining passengers to Cuba.