A judge ruled that two Cuban exiles arrested on weapons charges in Miami can receive a fair trial before a jury of only Broward County residents in Fort Lauderdale.

BY JAY WEAVER

The upcoming Fort Lauderdale trial of two anti-Castro activists facing weapons charges won't include any Miami-Dade residents in the jury pool.

They're not needed to ensure the Cuban exiles' right to a fair trial by their peers in Broward County, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge James Cohn found that the ``defendants themselves do not dispute that a fair and impartial jury can be found by using a [jury pool] comprised only of Broward County residents.''

His ruling is another setback for Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat as the Miami men get ready for their trial on Tuesday. Cohn already had ruled on keeping the trial in Fort Lauderdale after the U.S. attorney's office filed the weapons-conspiracy indictment there -- despite the men's arrests in Miami.

Both defendants face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Normally, federal jurors are selected from the immediate area where a crime was charged, but a judge can make an exception in a large regional district such as South Florida to protect a defendant's right to a fair trial by a jury of his peers.

Attorneys Kendall Coffey and Ben Keuhne, who represent Alvarez and Mitat, argued that the strikingly different demographics between Miami-Dade and Broward should allow a two-county jury in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.

Citing 2004 census figures, about one in three prospective jurors are likely to be Cuban American in Miami-Dade. The ratio is one in 25 in Broward, according to an analysis by Florida International University Professor Kevin Hill.

But the judge opposed that reasoning.

In December, Alvarez and Mitat pleaded not guilty to weapons charges -- including illegal possession of machine guns, rifles and silencers with obliterated serial numbers -- in federal court in Miami. Dozens of the men's supporters denounced their prosecution in Fort Lauderdale, where a grand jury indicted them on charges of storing illegal firearms in a Broward apartment complex that belonged to Alvarez, a wealthy developer.

U.S. government agents first learned about Alvarez in May 2005 when he helped Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles emerge from hiding before his arrest for entering the country illegally. Posada is still in federal custody in Texas.

The government's star witness is an FBI informant identified as Gilberto Abascal. He allegedly transported the weapons from the Broward apartment complex to Mitat in Miami -- tipping off agents. The defendants' lawyers claim Abascal is a spy for the Cuban government and the FBI. They plan to show that Abascal set up his former friends, Alvarez and Mitat.

Since last fall, they have been wrangling with the U.S. attorney's office over sensitive documents -- including one that shows the Coast Guard stopped Abascal and a couple in 1999 as they attempted to return to Cuba. With them were photographs of a Cuban exile paramilitary training camp in Miami-Dade County.

Other court records show that Abascal spoke with a Cuban official about Miami exiles as far back as 2001.

Now defense lawyers are trying to subpoena a possible witness, Milagros Ochoa. Ochoa, who has resisted answering the subpoena and turning over documents such as travel records, has sought assistance from the U.S. attorney's office. The judge is expected to rule on the Ochoa matter by Friday.