BY JAY WEAVER

One-time Florida International University Professor Carlos Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, supplied agents in Fidel Castro's government with classic intelligence information that went far beyond the ''harmless gossip'' the convicted couple said they gathered on the Cuban exile community, federal prosecutors said Monday.
On the eve of the couple's sentencings today, the U.S. attorney's office disclosed for the first time that the FBI obtained material from one of the Alvarezes' home computers showing that rather than reducing their illicit operation in the mid-1990s, they were still actively contacting the Cuban Intelligence Service.

In court papers filed Monday, a prosecutor argued for tough sentences as he cited ''sensitive details'' gathered from ''slack space'' on the Alvarezes' computer showing that Carlos Alvarez prepared written reports on:

• FIU president Modesto Maidique's personal finances and private business ventures.

• A ''redacted'' U.S. government study on the ``status of telecommunications in Cuba.''

• Brothers to the Rescue leader José Basulto, including that ''an investigation should continue'' into ``the ties he has to the CIA, the Cuban American [National] Foundation and financial interests such as Bacardi.''

• A personal contact who had met with Richard Nuccio, then-President Bill Clinton's special advisor for Cuba, who ''was very depressed'' by Cuba's shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes killing three Cuban-American men and a Cuban exile and the subsequent Helms-Burton law toughening the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

• Lula Rodriguez, a Miami-Dade Democrat who later became personal assistant to then-Attorney General Janet Reno and eventually deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs in the Clinton administration.

''Although it was Carlos Alvarez alone who would write and encrypt the reports [on computer disks], the reports would include information gathered by Elsa Alvarez as well,'' wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Axelrod. 'The reports would be signed with the names `David and Deborah,' the code names given to Carlos and Elsa Alvarez by the [Cuban Intelligence Service].''

Axelrod filed the couple's computer information obtained by the FBI under court seal. But he cited sections to bolster his argument that Carlos Alvarez should receive the maximum five-year prison sentence for pleading guilty in December to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for Cuba's communist government.

Axelrod also cited parts to back his argument that Elsa Alvarez, an FIU counselor on unpaid leave, should receive 21 months' imprisonment for pleading guilty to knowing about her husband's illegal activities and harboring him.

Carlos Alvarez's attorney, Steven Chaykin, called the latest filing ``another example of the government overstating the nature of this case.''

DEEP REGRET

''Dr. Alvarez deeply regrets having disclosed information to the Cuban Intelligence Service regarding details of a personal nature about Mr. Maidique in the late 1980s and early 1990s,'' Chaykin said. ``But at the time, he didn't think the information was of any import or consequences -- he knew Mitch Maidique well and that he was a leader in the Cuban American community, and he was a moderate.''

Chaykin said the rest of the information was readily available from newspapers and other public sources, saying Carlos Alvarez's goal was to loosen the U.S. embargo against Cuba. ''That was his thinking process, that he could make a difference,'' Chaykin said.

The Alvarezes' arrest in January 2006 sent shock waves through South Florida's exile community.

''This man has been dealing with sensitive information for years,'' said Basulto, a founder of Brothers to the Rescue.

''Don't tell me this is research on the exile community,'' added Basulto, who denied any involvement with the CIA since the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion or any investments in Bacardi. ``This is information used for strategic purposes by the Cuban government.''

The Alvarezes averted a difficult jury trial on the more serious, previous charge of being Cuban agents who did not register with the U.S. government, an offense that carried up to 10 years in prison.

Their plea deals were struck after U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore decided to allow a major piece of incriminating evidence at trial -- Carlos Alvarez's ''confession'' in summer 2005 to the FBI of his collaboration with Cuban intelligence agents, including use of a home computer, encrypted disks and travel to the island. Carlos Alvarez had destroyed much of the information on his hard drive, but not all of it.

30 YEARS AGO

Prosecutors believe Carlos Alvarez began spying for Cuba in 1977 and that Elsa Alvarez became aware of it in 1982.

Chaykin, in court papers, has urged Moore to be lenient, saying Carlos Alvarez should be sentenced to the time he has already served since he was placed in custody in January 2006 in the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami. Alternatively, he recommended that Alvarez serve whatever sentence he receives at his Miami-Dade home.

Chaykin portrayed Alvarez, 61, a longtime FIU psychology professor before his resignation last year, as a naive intellectual trying to manipulate his Cuban handlers to find an alternative to the U.S. embargo that could lead to the end of the Castro government.

''Of course, Carlos Alvarez did not realize until it was too late that it was he that the [Cuban Intelligence Service] was after, not his information,'' Chaykin wrote. ``It was he who had been manipulated, not the Cubans. Once he realized he was trapped, there was nothing he could do but to do as little as he could get away with, and pray he would not be exposed by the Cuban government for propaganda value.''

In an interview, Chaykin said his client's naiveté with the Cuban Intelligence Service also got him into trouble with the FBI when agents interviewed him three times at a local hotel without a lawyer present. The attorney said Alvarez believed that the FBI agents promised ``all he had to do was tell them the truth and they would leave him alone.''

The agents said Alvarez's confession amounted to enough evidence to charge him and his 56-year-old wife.