Miami Herald

Dec. 19 1966

Extortion Verdict Is ‘Not Guilty’

By Robert Reno

Herald Staff Writer

Dr. Orlando Bosch Avila, controversial leader of one of the most militant Cuban exile groups, was found innocent Sunday of trying to extort $21,000 from other exiles under threats of death.

A Federal Court jury took nearly eight hours to return the verdict. The trial before Judge Charles B. Fulton lasted seven days.

Marcelino Garcia Jimenez, an official of the Insurrectional Revolutionary Recovery Movement which Bosch heads, was also acquitted.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Matthews charged that the pair made repeated threats by mail and phone including a call to Mrs. Elizabeth Mendoza promising that her husband would be tied to a chair and burned alive if he didn’t come up with cash.

An FBI typewriter expert testified that one of the letters was written on a typewriter found in Bosch’s medical office.

Bosch has frequently boasted -- over official U.S. doubts -- that the MIRR has been responsible for numerous raids on Cuba. Last year he declared a “shipping war” against vessels of nations trading with Cuba and claimed his “frogmen” have bombed ships in several Latin American Ports.

In the U.S. he has been in frequent scrapes with federal and local officials in connection with illegal transportation of bombs.

He and Garcia took the stand Saturday to deny making the threats. Bosch brought a microphone and some wires to the witness stand and claimed they had been hidden in MIRR headquarters by U.S. agents last year.

He said he has frequently solicited funds from wealthy exiles but denied ever using threats to obtain donations for the MIRR.

Bosch, a former lieutenant of Premier Fidel Castro who broke with the Cuban leader, said after the verdict that the trial was “entirely political” and pledged to continue his raids on Cuba.