By Karen DeYoung
                  Washington Post Staff Writer
                  Sunday, April 9, 2000; Page A03

                  Attorneys for the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez spent the weekend
                  preparing last-ditch efforts to place legal roadblocks in the way of the Justice
                  Department's insistence that they surrender custody of the boy to his Cuban
                  father this week.

                  While one group of lawyers polished the family's appeal of a federal court
                  decision that went against them last month, due Monday, another was
                  composing an emergency petition to Florida family court. The state petition,
                  said lawyer Eduardo I. Rasco, will ask for a trial in which Elian's Miami
                  great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, could present evidence showing that he should
                  be granted custody of the 6-year-old child.

                  Those efforts, along with attempts by the Miami relatives to meet privately
                  with the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, seemed likely dead-ends. Another
                  Miami great-uncle, Delfin Gonzalez, showed up for the second day in a row
                  at the Bethesda home of a Cuban diplomat where the father is staying, but
                  Juan Gonzalez again refused to see him.

                  Delfin Gonzalez brought with him yesterday the two fishermen who found
                  Elian floating off the coast of Fort Lauderdale in November, one of three
                  survivors of a migrant shipwreck in which Elian's mother and her boyfriend
                  drowned.

                  The three said they had come to try to urge the father to meet with Lazaro
                  Gonzalez and other family members to "hash this out" away from Cuban and
                  U.S. officials, and ultimately to persuade him to defect and remain in this
                  country with Elian.

                  They alternately accused the Cuban government of preventing Juan
                  Gonzalez from seeing them and criticized him for not caring about his son's
                  welfare.

                  "They won't let him meet with his own flesh and blood," Delfin Gonzalez said
                  of Cuban officials. "It shows what a state security operation it is."

                  Asked by reporters about the possibility that Juan Gonzalez may be angry
                  with them for keeping his son away from him, Delfin Gonzalez said the
                  father speaks to his son by telephone "every day." But "the only thing he and
                  the whole Gonzalez family [in Cuba] want to say is when is the child coming
                  back? They don't want to talk about his welfare."

                  The fishermen, who have become close to the Miami relatives and support
                  their cause, said they have developed personal bonds with Elian. "If this child
                  goes back to Cuba, I would be devastated," said Sam Ciancio. "It would be
                  like taking one of my own children. . . . My purpose in being here is to sit
                  down and meet him [Elian's father] and tell him how much this child has
                  meant to us. . . . This child is part of our family now. We want to know what
                  kind of man he is."

                  "We gave birth to that child in the ocean," Donato Dalrymple said, "so this
                  man owes us more than a shake of his hand. . . . I want to pour my heart out
                  to this man, and hopefully he will listen to what I have to say about the
                  rescue, and about how his son has bonded with me."

                  In statements to reporters Friday, after meeting with Attorney General Janet
                  Reno, Juan Gonzalez thanked the fishermen. Yesterday, his lawyer, Gregory
                  B. Craig, said he may meet with them today, when he also is to see three
                  mental health experts named by the government to help facilitate Elian's
                  transfer to his father's custody.

                  But any meeting with the Miami relatives is unlikely, Craig said.

                  "The first thing that has to happen is Lazaro has to take by the hand Elian
                  Gonzalez and lead him to his father and say, 'Here is your son.' And until
                  that happens, it's very difficult to contemplate anything more," Craig said.

                  A state court gave Lazaro Gonzalez interim custody in January, based on his
                  argument that sending Elian back to communist Cuba would amount to child
                  abuse. Reno has said repeatedly that the Florida ruling is irrelevant because
                  the state has no jurisdiction over the boy, who officially is under the care of
                  the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

                  Rasco, the relatives' attorney, said the petition he plans to file on Monday
                  will ask the court to declare Juan Gonzalez in default because he failed to
                  respond to the initial state order, and will seek a full custody trial. In part, it
                  will argue that Reno herself has said that she has no way of making Juan
                  Gonzalez stay in this country until the May 11 federal appeals hearing once
                  he has his son. "The state court is the only body left to say, 'Don't leave yet.
                  There's an appeal pending.' "

                  The state order also had said that Elian may not be taken out of Florida. "If
                  the INS wants to violate the court order, I personally am going to do what I
                  can to make them accountable," Rasco said. "Janet Reno is a member of the
                  Florida bar." But he acknowledged there is little that local authorities could
                  do to prevent the INS from taking Elian wherever it wants.

                  Staff writer Linda Perlstein contributed to this report.

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