BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES

 A former Miami couple pleaded guilty Thursday to spying for Cuba, but the wife's plea occurred behind closed doors after the judge barred the public from the courtroom.

 Marisol Gari, 42, and George Gari, 41, bring to seven the number of Cuban spies convicted this year as the result of a massive FBI investigation into a spy ring called the Wasp Network. More arrests are anticipated, according to the FBI.

 Sources familiar with the case said Marisol Gari's plea agreement, which was sealed by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages, calls for her cooperation with federal prosecutors in their continuing investigation.

 A jury convicted five high-ranking intelligence agents from the Wasp Network in June after a six-month trial that revealed the inner workings of Cuba's intelligence
 apparatus. The men are scheduled to be sentenced in December.

 The Garis were relatively low-level functionaries in the network, however, and lawyers for some of the high-ranking agents wondered whether husband or wife would have important information to offer the government.

 According to the guilty pleas, the Garis, who were arrested in Orlando last month, used the code names Luis and Margot while assisting in the spy ring's two primary
 goals: trying to infiltrate the U.S. Southern Command headquarters in West Miami-Dade and to penetrate the inner circles of the Cuban American National Foundation.

 The couple reported to several of the higher-ranking illegal agents for Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence and had started ``handling'' other spies, according to the pleas. Marisol Gari also compiled a report on various U.S. mail systems for her Cuban bosses.

 As the plea hearing was scheduled to start Thursday, Ungaro-Beneges's courtroom clerk told a Herald reporter to leave the 11th-floor courtroom so lawyers in the case could confer. About 20 minutes later the clerk said the judge had taken the bench but had ordered the doors kept shut.

 The clerk declined to answer why that step was taken, and none of the lawyers would talk about the closure, saying the judge had sealed the record of the proceeding. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Buckner declined comment.

 Louis Casuso, lawyer for Marisol Gari, confirmed outside the courtroom that she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent for Cuba. She faces a maximum of five years in prison and could be deemed deportable afterward because she is not a U.S. citizen.

 In turn, prosecutors dropped a second charge of acting as an unregistered Cuban agent, Casuso said. That charge carried a 10-year sentence.

 Asked if his client was cooperating, Casuso said, ``I can't tell you, I'm sorry.''

 The courtroom was then opened for George Gari's guilty plea to one count of acting as an unregistered agent for Cuba. He faces a maximum of 10 years.

 In turn, prosecutors agreed to recommend a reduction in Gari's sentence and dropped a second charge of conspiracy. The plea agreement does not call for him to
 cooperate, said his lawyer, Elizabeth Delgado. Gari was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved to Cuba as a child.

 The judge set the couple's sentencing for Jan. 4, 2002.

                                    © 2001