A notorious migrant smuggler was resentenced to just under 13 years, after a federal appeals court threw out a much longer sentence.

BY JENNIFER BABSON

Jorge ''Bombino'' Aleman, a convicted Cuban-migrant smuggler whose sentence of life in prison plus five years was thrown out in March by a federal appeals court, was resentenced Monday to just under 13 years in prison.

Aleman's 151-month sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King in Miami. Aleman's 2002 sentence -- the longest ever given to a South Florida migrant smuggler -- was vacated by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Aleman received the earlier sentence after pleading guilty in a multicount smuggling case that charged him in the 2001 death of a 48-year-old Cuban woman fleeing the island by smuggling boat.

The appeals court said King ''improperly considered'' what he characterized as Aleman's ''total callous disregard for human life'' in sentencing Aleman to a longer punishment than anticipated in his plea agreement.

In 2001, Aleman was arrested on charges that he organized five smuggling runs between late 1999 and 2001 that ferried more than 100 Cubans to Florida. A January 2001 voyage resulted in the death of Cira Rodriguez, a Cuban who is believed to have died on a small Bahamian cay after smugglers dumped her and the other passengers on the island without food and water.

Witnesses told investigators that Rodriguez, whose body was never located, hit her head on the boat earlier in the voyage.

On Monday, Aleman's attorney said he plans to appeal the new sentence based on a June Supreme Court ruling. The ruling requires a jury to weigh whether circumstances of a crime or unusually heinous behavior by a defendant can be considered by a judge in increasing a defendant's sentence. The ruling also requires a defendant who pleads guilty to be fully informed of factors that may be cited to increase his or her sentence.

''I already drafted the notice of appeal, it will be filed tomorrow,'' Aleman attorney Howard Schumacher said.

Schumacher contends that King improperly considered government allegations -- which were never included in his client's indictment and were not agreed to as fact by the defense -- that Aleman brandished a firearm during the January 2001 smuggling run.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami declined to comment on Monday's re-sentencing.

King did not return a phone call.