[Ppnews] Hartford Courant - Avelino Gonzalez Claudio story

Tue Apr 15 10:40:07 EDT 2008

courant.com/news/local/hc-ctfargo0415.artapr15,0,5521230.story

Courant.com

Puerto Rican Nationalist Tied To San Juan Attacks

By EDMUND H. MAHONY

Courant Staff Writer

April 15, 2008

Federal prosecutors tried to link Puerto Rican 
nationalist Avelino Gonzalez Claudio to two 
rocket attacks in San Juan as they began an 
effort Monday to have him jailed as a threat and 
a flight risk while he awaits trial on charges of 
robbing $7 million from an armored car depot in West Hartford in 1983.

The hearing began late Monday in U.S. District 
Court in Hartford and was scheduled to resume 
today. Prosecutors, who opened the contentious 
hearing, said they will make additional arguments 
today, and Gonzalez's defense team is awaiting 
their chance to rebut the government claims.

Prosecutors said that Gonzalez is a leader of the 
violent Puerto Rico pro-independence group Los 
Macheteros and that he played a key role in 
approving the group's robbery of the Wells Fargo 
terminal  then the largest cash robbery in U.S. history.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Henry K. Kopel said 
Monday that the FBI found Gonzalez's fingerprint 
in a mobile home used to move $2 million of the 
money and Victor M. Gerena, Los Machetero's inside man, to Mexico.

Gonzalez was indicted on charges related to the 
robbery in 1985, but disappeared until his arrest 
on Feb. 7. He is believed to have lived in Puerto 
Rico under assumed names and, at least part of 
the time, taught a computer course at a private school.

Prosecutors are arguing that Gonzalez should be 
jailed while awaiting trial because he is likely 
to flee and because he has a violent history that 
makes him a threat to public safety. Although 
Gonzalez had no chance to offer rebuttal 
arguments during Monday's truncated hearing, his 
chief defense lawyer, James W. Bergenn, 
repeatedly tried to pick apart the government's 
evidence  much of it from the early 1980s.

Kopel said the FBI in Puerto Rico found 
fingerprints matching those of Gonzalez on the 
arm rest of a Chevrolet parked near the site of a 
rocket attack on the FBI offices in the Hato Rey 
district of San Juan on Oct. 30, 1983. Kopel said 
the Chevrolet was one of two suspicious cars 
reported by witnesses not far from the scene of the attack.

But under combined questioning by Bergenn and 
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Smith, Kopel 
conceded he could not conclusively tie Gonzalez's 
fingerprints to the attack. Kopel did say that 
witnesses reported seeing a suspicious character 
wiping fingerprints from the outside of one of the cars before fleeing.

"Maybe that person fired the rocket," Bergenn said.

Kopel also tied Gonzalez to a second rocket 
attack on the federal courthouse and U.S. post 
office building in old San Juan in 1985. He said 
that time, Gonzalez's fingerprints were found on 
part of the weapon left behind at the scene of the launch.

Contact Edmund H. Mahony at <mailto:emahony at courant.com>emahony at courant.com.

Copyright © 2008, <http://www.courant.com/>The Hartford Courant

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