National Committee to Free the Cuban Five

Press Conference Announces FOIA Lawsuit
by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five

Seeks to uncover more information about journalists who were covertly paid by the government before and during the trial of the Cuban Five

Sept. 9, 2009

Read the legal complaint filed in the lawsuit (pdf)

At a press conference this morning, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five announced that the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed a lawsuit on its behalf today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Broadcasting Board of Directors (BBG) because it has "unlawfully failed to disclose specific U.S. government-paid contracts with journalists" who published materials that were negative to Cuba and prejudicial to the case of the Cuban Five.

The legal complaint states: "The public is entitled to know to what extent the U.S. government covertly paid journalists who wrote stories related to the case [of the Cuban 5] ... that were likely to reach and influence both the jury pool and the seated jury while the U.S. simultaneously carried out these prosecutions."

The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, under the Freedom of Information Act, submitted a request on Jan. 23, 2009 to the BBG seeking public disclosure of the BBG's funding of journalists including specifically identified contracts between the BBG and these journalists. The government is unlawfully refusing to produce these documents.

In 2006, a FOIA request filed by the Miami Herald newspaper disclosed for the first time the information that key South Florida journalists (pictured above) had been paid by the government. The FOIA request filed by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five has learned that some of those journalists were being paid before and during the trial of the Cuban Five, and has resulted in the disclosure of additional journalists who were on the government payroll. This lawsuit seeks to further amplify the information we have, and to further expose the role of the government in what amounts to jury tampering, biasing not only the jury pool but even the actual seated jury in a trial in which the jury was not sequestered, and subjected daily to a barrage of negative media coverage of the Five.

Today's press conference was attended by journalists from the Miami Herald, the Associated Press, ABC-TV, WBAI-Pacifica, KPFA-Pacifica, Notimex, Univisión, Radio Havana Cuba, and Roundtable (Cuba).

THE PRESS CONFERENCE:

Listen to the press conference (mp3)

What follows is a transcript of the opening remarks only, not the very extended question and answer period which followed:

Gloria La Riva: My name is Gloria La Riva, I’m from the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. The purpose of our press conference is to announce a lawsuit that’s been filed on our behalf by the Partnership for Civil Justice. Our speakers today will be Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice and myself.

Sept. 12 will mark the 11th anniversary of the arrest of the Cuban Five in Miami, who remain unjustly imprisoned to this day. Their convictions and the outrageous sentences after their trial, their sentences including four life terms and 77 years, came in the midst of a highly prejudicial, anti-Cuba atmosphere in Miami. The Miami media played a key role in fostering this hostile environment, with a flood of articles and broadcast coverage that could only have happened in that city on an issue involving Cuba. Several years after the Cuban Five’s conviction, which took place on June 8, 2001, it was revealed that a number of Miami reporters were on the payroll of the U.S. government through the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). At least several of them were paid during the time of the Five’s detention and trial and wrote articles or covered the case of the Five.

This first discovery came through the Freedom of Information Act by Oscar Corral of the Miami Herald in 2006. Because we believe that there was far more influence by the U.S. government through the pay of other journalists, as well as those who were discovered in 2006, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five filed a Freedom of Information Act request of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting on January 23, 2009. After a delay in receiving information, the Board gave us a limited list of information of journalists, both those who were revealed in the 2006 FOIA and also others who were uncovered through our request. However, after requesting more information for what we believe is necessary for important research into the full role of the Miami media in creating this hysteria against the Cuban Five, the BBG and the OCB have refuse to give us any more information, and this is why we have filed the lawsuit today.

Now to speak will be Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice which is one of the leading civil rights legal organizations in the country and which are our attorneys in this matter.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard: I am Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, I am co-founder with Carl Messineo of the Partnership for Civil Justice and the attorney on this case. We have brought this litigation on behalf of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five because we believe it raises very major and significant issues in terms of government misconduct on multiple fronts. What has happened is that the National Committee has uncovered that there are journalists in Miami who were on the payroll of the U.S. government during the period from the arrest to the conviction of the Cuban Five. These are journalists who have written incendiary and false reporting about Cuba as well as about the Cuban Five. The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five has sought specific information, in particular a series of contracts, dozens and dozens of contracts, that they have identified that the BBG engaged in with these named journalists. The BBG has refused to provide that information. They are unlawfully withholding the contracts, the contracts, many of them have been identified by name of journalist, by contract number, by date, and yet they are refusing to produce them. They have sought for eight months and gone through every avenue of appeal to get this information.

And fundamentally, the issues that are implicated here involve whether or not the U.S. government, as it appears that they were, covertly paid journalists who wrote stories related to the case or about Cuban relations that were likely to reach and influence both the jury pool in Miami and the seated jury while the U.S. simultaneously carried out prosecutions of the Cuban Five. If the U.S. government engaged in a covert operation of this nature, that would have affected a fair trial, it raises questions of government misconduct, whether the prosecutions were tainted by this activity, that are poisoning the jury pool. The U.S. government cannot simultaneously covertly pay journalists to write negative stories, or who are writing negative stories, funding those journalist who are writing about Cuba, who are writing about the Cuban Five, while they are prosecuting the Cuban Five in Miami, when everyone recognizes at this point the hysteria, the atmosphere, the poisoned atmosphere with regard to that trial. And to know that that was being funded by the U.S. government is a major, major development.

The second issue here is that the Broadcasting Board of Governors is barred by law from using its funding to influence U.S. public opinion. Under the Smith-Mundt Act, the U.S. government and BBG may not engage in domestic propaganda operations, they may not create or fund propaganda vehicles that are intended and will reach a U.S. audience. There is no explanation that the BBG has given that is a legitimate basis for withholding these contracts. I think that the fact that they are withholding these contracts only makes the situation more damning.

PRESS COVERAGE OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE:

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard interviewed on WBAI (Pacifica NYC) evening news, 9/9/09:

Listen to the interview (mp3)

Gloria La Riva and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard interviewed on KPFA (Pacifica SF) evening news, 9/9/09:

Listen to the interview (mp3)

Lawyers sue US to obtain contracts signed with journalists during Cuban spy case

MIAMI (AP) — A nonprofit law group on Wednesday sued the U.S. government, demanding more information about contracts the government had with journalists it paid while they were reporting on the prosecution of five Cuban intelligence agents in Miami.

The lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington argues the U.S. government's Office of Cuba Broadcasting may have gotten around federal law against domestic propaganda.

It maintains that more than a dozen journalists who covered the seven-month Cuban spy trial in Miami, which began in November 2000, also contributed on a freelance basis to the U.S. governments' Radio and TV Marti broadcasts beamed into Cuba that were highly critical of the five. The articles written by those journalists for Miami area media outlets were also highly critical of the defendants.

The Committee to Free the Cuban Five, a nonprofit group, says the media contributed to an extremely charged atmosphere in Miami and may have swayed the jury against the men. The law group in Washington is suing on behalf of the Committee.

Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard called it problematic that the government was both prosecuting the case against the intelligence agents and paying journalists though its "propaganda arm" who were also covering the trial for local newspaper, TV and radio stations.

Verheyden-Hilliard said she had no evidence that the journalists were paid by the federal government for the reports they did for local news outlets. But there is no dispute that they were paid during that period to report for TV and Radio Marti.

"We're not talking about people who were anchors on TV Marti, we're talking about journalists who put forward that they were independent," said

Tish King, a spokeswoman for the Broadcasting Board of Governors in Washington, said the board had not yet seen the lawsuit and could not comment directly on it.

But King said that Radio and TV Marti "provide fact-based information for an audience in Cuba" and disputed the depiction of them as U.S. government propaganda outlets.

She also said the board regularly received Freedom of Information Act requests for information on its contracts and programs and complies with them. However, the Committee for the Cuban Five said it had already tried and failed to get the information it sought through a Freedom of Information Act request.

A message left for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.

The five were convicted in 2001 of being unregistered foreign agents. Three were also found guilty of conspiracy to obtain military secrets and one was convicted of murder conspiracy. Their supporters maintain they did not receive a fair trial because of strong anti-Castro sentiment in Miami. The men have been lionized in Cuba.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to hear their case but three members of the group will be resentenced in October and could see their sentences reduced.

A group pressing for the release of five convicted Cuban spies claimed Wednesday that the U.S. government might have paid U.S. journalists to slant coverage of the case in an effort to spur community hysteria in Miami and get convictions.

The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five made the claim in a lawsuit in federal court against the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs the government's foreign broadcasting programs, including Radio and TV Martí.

The committee admitted it had no evidence for its claim that the journalists -- including two from El Nuevo Herald -- were paid to slant their coverage for the publications they worked for. A BBG spokeswoman called the contention ``absurd.'' El Nuevo Herald's journalists denied the claim.

The group is seeking the release of government contracts with 16 journalists who were paid for work they did for Radio or TV Martí between the time of the spies' arrests in 1998 and their 2001 convictions.

(CN) - A group trying to free five convicted Cuban spies sued the U.S. government, seeking information they say will show that U.S. journalists were paid to prejudice their coverage of the "Cuban Five," inflaming the Miami citizenry and assuring the convictions.

The National Committee for Free the Cuban Five charges the Broadcasting Board of Governors and its Office of Cuba Broadcasting - which operate Radio Marti and TV Marti, which broadcast to Cuba - may have violated federal law against domestic propaganda.
The committee wants the Broadcasting Board to disclose government contracts with 16 journalists, particularly those dating from the spies' arrest in 1998 until their 2001 convictions.

The time was "rife with incendiary and false reporting by reporters in Miami about the Cuban Five and the country of Cuba," the committee claims. It say that many journalists covering the case were being paid by the "propaganda arm" of the U.S. government, for contributing to Radio Marti while also reporting for local media outlets.

The Broadcasting Board failed to provide the documents despite repeated requests, the committee says. It claims the board has been stonewalling and thwarting disclosure by charging exorbitant fees for research and duplication of the documents.

Three were also found guilty of conspiracy to obtain military secrets; one was convicted of murder conspiracy.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to hear their appeal, but three members of the group are expected to be resentenced in October.

The plaintiff is represented in District of Columbia Federal Court by Carl Messineo of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington.

HAVANA, Cuba, Sept 10 (acn) The US’s Partnership for Civil Justice Fund on Wednesday filed a lawsuit on behalf of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, is against the Broadcasting Board of Directors (BBG) because it has “unlawfully failed to disclose specific US government-paid contracts with journalists” who published materials that were negative to Cuba and prejudicial to the case of the Cuban Five.

The legal complaint states: “The public is entitled to know to what
extent the US government covertly paid journalists who wrote stories related to the case that were likely to reach and influence both the jury pool and the seated jury while the US simultaneously carried out these prosecutions.”

According to the complaint, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), submitted a request on January 23, 2009, to the BBG seeking public disclosure of the BBG’s funding of journalists including specifically identified contracts between the BBG and these journalists. However, the government is unlawfully refusing to produce these documents.

In 2006, a FOIA request filed by the Miami Herald newspaper disclosed for the first time the information that key South Florida journalists had been paid by the government before and during the trial of the Cuban Five. The lawsuit seeks to further amplify this information and to further expose the role of the government in what amounts to jury tampering, biasing not only the jury pool but even the actual seated jury in a trial in which the jury was not sequestered, and subjected daily to a barrage of negative media coverage of the Five.

Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino and Fernando Gonzalez – internationally known as the Cuban 5 – were arrested in 1998 and condemned to harsh sentences ranging from 15 years to two life terms for monitoring anti-Cuba extremist groups in South Florida that were planning and carrying out terrorist attacks against the Caribbean nation.