Businessman executed in 1961

  BY JAY WEAVER

  The widow and four grown children of American businessman Howard F. Anderson, executed more than four decades ago by Fidel Castro's forces, won a $67 million judgment against the Cuban government Thursday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

  The legal victory marks the third time a Miami court has allowed damages against Cuba, a sovereign nation, under a recent federal antiterrorism statute.

  Anderson was shot by firing squad on April 19, 1961, after he was found guilty of conspiring to smuggle arms into Cuba to fight Castro's revolutionary regime.

  His widow and children said they were grateful after all these years to be able to challenge the Castro government over Anderson's wrongful death. Cuba did not send a representative to contest the case at trial last month.

  ''This is pretty awesome,'' Bonnie Anderson, 47, said upon learning of her family's victory. ``I hope this ruling will help my dad rest in peace now that his death has been avenged in a U.S. court.''

  Anderson, a former Herald and television news reporter, said Circuit Judge Ellen Leesfield's ruling could not have come at a more appropriate time: The 42nd anniversary of her father's death is Saturday. It also follows a recent regime crackdown on island dissidents and the executions of three Cuban men accused of trying to hijack a ferry to the United States.

  Leesfield awarded $40 million in compensatory damages to the survivors for their economic losses -- based on a calculation of what Anderson's businesses and estate would be worth today had he lived this long. Anderson owned a Jeep distributorship, three gas stations and a boat manufacturing business in Havana.

  The judge also awarded $27 million in compensatory damages for the family's pain and suffering. Leesfield broke down the award this way: $7 million for Anderson's widow, Dorothy, of Pompano Beach; and $5 million each for his children Gary, of Houston; Marc, of Ocala; Lee, of Houston; and Bonnie, of Atlanta.

  Leesfield said she found it ''impossible to say that one child suffered more than another'' because of the children's teary testimony about the horrific loss of their father.

  The Andersons' attorneys, Scott Leeds and Fernando Zulueta, hope to collect the damages from more than $100 million in frozen Cuban assets in U.S. banks. They must petition the Treasury Department for access to the funds -- a difficult, but not impossible, task.

  The tragic saga began soon after the 1959 Castro takeover, when Anderson moved his family to Miami for their safety. He stayed behind to look after his businesses.

  In March 1961, Cuban military agents charged Anderson with smuggling arms into Cuba. His family later learned that he was indeed part of the anti-Castro struggle.

  ''He was not a paid CIA agent,'' Bonnie Anderson said in a 1991 Herald story. ``He did favors for the CIA. He carried messages back and forth.''

  The regime executed Anderson, then 41, two days after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Under Cuban law, such an offense usually carried a maximum of nine years in prison, the Andersons claimed in their suit.

  The family was able to pierce the Cuban government's sovereign immunity under a 1996 law that allows victims of designated terrorist states to sue for damages.

  In 2001, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Alan Postman ordered the Cuban government to pay $27 million to the jilted Miami wife of a Cuban spy, declaring that Cuba
  orchestrated his sham marriage so he could infiltrate the Miami exile community. Ana Margarita Martinez has not collected any money yet.

  In 1997, U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King ordered the Cuban government to pay $187 million to the relatives of three Brothers to the Rescue fliers who were shot down by Castro's Air Force over the Florida Straits the previous year. With the Clinton administration's approval, the relatives collected half of the award from the frozen bank assets.