Javier Morales, left, one of the acquitted pair, and his brother Alfredo speak to reporters Thursday outside the federal courthouse in Key West.

A Key West jury finds two Cuban cousins not guilty of attacking federal agents during their voyage across the Florida Straits in May.

BY CARA BUCKLEY

KEY WEST - A federal jury acquitted two Cuban cousins Thursday of attacking Coast Guard officers in a case that defense lawyers said highlights inconsistencies of the ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy that makes it illegal for Cuban rafters to journey to the United States but legal for most to stay once land is reached.

Javier Morales, 27, and Reinaldo Molina, 30, were accused of attacking Coast Guard officers with a spear-like weapon and six-inch knife during their perilous voyage across the Florida Straits last May, crimes that carry maximum sentences of 20 years. The defense insisted the Guard overreacted and were covering up for it, and that the frightened migrants misunderstood their commands.

Lack of material evidence hobbled assistant U.S. attorneys Lynn Kirkpatrick and Carlos B. Castillo's case: Everything on the migrants' boat, including a machete, two knives and the sail boom -- which prosecutors described as ''spear-like'' -- were tossed overboard. A Blackhawk pilot said he could discern ''a scuffle,'' but military video of the interception failed to capture the standoff itself.

''I'm sure there was excitement between them and the Coast Guard out there, but I'm not sure at what level,'' jury foreman Jim Brienza said. "It was just not enough evidence to be able to do anything beyond a reasonable doubt.''

Molina, Morales, his brother Alfredo Morales and a fourth migrant, Ramon Aguilar, spent eight days at sea and were two miles off Key Largo when the Coast Guard intercepted their rickety handmade sailboat on May 6.

The four young Coast Guard officers aboard the cutter that day testified that a tense standoff ensued after the migrants denied having weapons, refused to dismantle their sail and Morales ripped out the boom and lunged its spiked end at Petty Officer Felix Velazquez.

PULLED PISTOL

Velazquez pulled out his 9mm pistol and his fellow officers used pepper spray. Three officers said Molina threatened them with a knife.

But Molina and the Morales brothers said they were confused by the Coast Guard's demands and terrified of their intentions. Morales testified he was dismantling the sail as directed when Velazquez aimed his gun. The group next threw a machete and two knives overboard as directed when they were pepper-sprayed, Morales said.

The migrants leapt into the water and swam two hours to shore as news helicopters hovered overhead. Morales said the group threw Coast Guard life jackets back for fear it was ''a trap.'' Everyone made land but Aguilar, who climbed aboard a Coast Guard boat and recently accepted asylum in Panama. Alfredo Morales, a defense witness, was not charged with a crime.

During the four-day trial, jurors heard widely divergent accounts of the May 6 events. Absent the alleged weapons, Velazquez constructed a pitchfork-like replica of his rendition of the boom, but it differed sharply from photographs of Morales' own reconstruction of two spliced oars bound clumsily together.

The 11-man, one-woman jury took 2 ½ hours to reach their verdict, which the defendants' family greeted with tears and yelps as prosecutors and Coast Guard officers sat in stony silence.

''I felt pressure, but I never had any doubt because I never did anything they accused me of,'' Morales said outside the courthouse. ``Now I feel like there's a new life for me.''

Steps away, Morales' defense lawyer, Grisel Ybarra, wept with relief. Though a noted immigration attorney, it was Ybarra's first criminal trial. ''I was Cousin Vinny,'' she said shakily in a reference to the movie. "I was so scared that I'd let him down.''

Molina's lawyer, Andres Quintero, said the trial laid bare the inconsistencies of law that makes it a crime for Cubans to attempt to reach the United States by sea but grants the migrants asylum once they hit land. ''Maybe it's time to reassess this policy and welcome these people who are running from tyranny and oppression,'' he said.

PREVIOUS DEAL

The prosecution and defense agreed last summer that Molina and Morales would perform one year of community service under probation to avoid a trial. But in an unusual move, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore rejected the deal, noting a federal grand jury's indictment of the pair and the severity of their alleged crime.

Meanwhile, the migrants' saga, first broadcast to the world by news choppers as they swam to Florida shores 11 months ago, ended as it began, before a rapt camera crew, with Brienza approaching the men and shaking their hands.

''I just wanted to welcome you to America,'' the foreman said, as cameras whirred.