Two men charged in a Cuban-migrant smuggling operation that left a 24-year-old woman dead pleaded guilty.

BY CAMMY CLARK

KEY WEST - Two men charged in a Cuban-migrant smuggling operation that left a 24-year-old woman dead pleaded guilty to all 68 counts Tuesday in federal court.

Rolando Gonzalez, 20, and Heinrich Castillo, 28, pleaded guilty in Spanish and showed little emotion during the 30-minute proceeding. But several family members and friends wept when assistant U.S. attorney Jeff Tsai said that the most serious offense, migrant smuggling that results in death, carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore set sentencing for Jan. 8.

A third defendant, Amil Gonzalez, decided to take his chances at a trial next week. Gonzalez has said he was not a smuggler, but simply a migrant like the others who were intercepted by the Coast Guard on July 8.

The government's case against Gonzalez and Castillo appeared solid. Prosecutors said the pair picked up an unregistered go-fast boat in Key Largo and navigated it to Cuba in the middle of the night to pick up 32 people waiting ashore.

As the boat was returning to the United States, it was detected by the Coast Guard. The 30-minute chase, partially captured on video, ended only after the Coast Guard fired two disabling shots into one of the boat's three engines.

Tsai said in court that the Coast Guard found several people on the boat who appeared to be badly injured and an unconscious woman, Anay Machado.

Tsai said Machado had a large cut on her face and bruises on her nose, and her was face covered in blood.

U.S. Coast Guard officials said Machado was treated immediately but she died en route to a hospital in Key West.

The Monroe County medical examiner said her death was caused by blunt-force trauma to her head. While neither side disputes that the injury occurred during the crossing of the Florida Straits, they disagree on when it occurred.

Prosecutors said the woman was hurt early in the chase, citing witness accounts. But Castillo's lawyer, Melvin Black, said other witnesses said the injury occurred when the boat was stopped, spun to the left and was rammed by the Coast Guard boat.

Black said Castillo and Rolando Gonzalez ''are not shirking responsibility and understand a tragic death has incurred.'' But he said he hopes the discrepancy over the timing of the injury occurred would be taken into consideration in the Jan. 8 sentencing.

The case against Amil Gonzalez, a Cuban national who said he had never before been in the United States, appears less clear-cut.

Prosecutors, citing Cuban intelligence, said it was Gonzalez who orchestrated the pickup in Cuba, waving a flashlight to signal the go-fast boat.

The government also said Gonzalez was at the console with the other two defendants during the chase and signaled to a migrant to act as a human shield in front of the engine to prevent the disabling shots from the Coast Guard.

''He's innocent,'' attorney Irving Gonzalez said of his client, who is not related.

Also on the boat was Gonzalez' common-law wife, Julie Escandon.

The trial was supposed to begin Tuesday but was delayed a week to give the defense time to retain an expert medical witness.