[Ppnews] No Bail For Avelino Gonzalez Claudio

Tue Apr 15 14:53:39 EDT 2008

courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hcu-wellsfargo0415,0,6304474.story

Courant.com

No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

By EDMUND H. MAHONY

Courant Staff Writer

1:56 PM EDT, April 15, 2008

A federal magistrate ruled Tuesday that Avelino 
Gonzalez Claudio, a militant Puerto Rican 
nationalist charged in the 1983 robbery of a West 
Hartford armored car depot, is a flight risk and 
should be imprisoned without bail while awaiting trial.

Gonzalez, 65, is one of 19 members of the 
militant pro-independence group Los Macheteros 
indicted for planning and carrying out the $7 
million robbery on Sept. 12, 1983. At the time, 
it was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history. 
Records seized in the case show that Los 
Macheteros planned to use the money to finance a 
revolutionary war against the United States.

Gonzalez disappeared in 1985 after his indictment 
in the case but before authorities could arrest 
him. He remained a fugitive until his capture by 
the FBI on Feb. 7 in the Puerto Rican north coast 
town of Manati, where he lived with his wife.

Prosecutors said during Gonzalez's two-day 
detention hearing in U.S. District Court that he 
lived in Puerto Rico under the name Jose Ortega Morales.

Other court records show that, during several of 
his years as a fugitive, Gonzalez worked as an 
instructor at a private computer institute in 
Puerto Rico. As part of his work, Gonzalez 
instructed federal court employees in Puerto Rico 
on computer use, according to a friend and fellow Machetero member.

After his apprehension, Gonzalez was transferred 
to Connecticut to stand trial on 15 charges 
associated with the robbery. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on Feb. 15.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Smith agreed with 
prosecution arguments Tuesday and concluded that 
no bail terms could be created that would 
guarantee Gonzalez's appearance at a trial. His 
lawyer, James Bergenn, said earlier that 
Gonzalez's family members and a close friend had 
agreed to post $500,000 in equity from their 
homes. In addition, Bergenn said Gonzalez would 
agree to house arrest, electronic monitoring and 
daily reporting to court supervisors.

"These charges just by themselves are incredibly 
serious," Smith told Gonzalez. "They are 
aggravated bank robbery charges, the largest bank 
robbery in U.S. history. Frankly, I'm not 
inclined to release you. The fact that you 
managed to escape the charges for 23 years does not give you a free pass."

Gonzalez's wife wept at the decision and was 
comforted by his three sons, all of whom had 
flown from Puerto Rico to Hartford for the hearing.

"We are sad he didn't get out," said one of the 
sons, Oscar Gonzalez Pedrosa, a child 
pyschiatrist. "We thought the defense lawyer made a very good case."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Henry Kopel had argued 
for Gonzalez's detention on two grounds -- flight 
risk and dangerousness. Kopel said the FBI had 
tied Gonzalez to two Machetero Rocket attacks on 
federal buildings in Puerto Rico and found bomb 
making and military manuals in his home.

Smith said their was enough evidence to detain 
Gonzalez as a flight risk. He said he did not 
need to consider evidence that he might pose a 
threat to the public if released.

Los Macheteros is a clandestine group which has 
taken credit for several robberies and violent 
attacks on U.S. targets in Puerto Rico. The Wells 
Fargo robbery, in which more than $7 million was stolen, was the most dramatic.

The group, in which Gonzalez held a senior 
position, recruited a young man from Hartford, 
Victor M. Gerena, to obtain a position with Wells 
Fargo and act as an inside man. At the close of 
business on Sept. 12, 1983, Gerena -- at gun 
point -- disarmed two co-workers, tied them up, 
and attempted to render them unconscious by 
injecting them with a still-unknown substance.

Gerena then stuffed a rented automobile with all 
the cash it could hold, summoned at least one 
Machetero who was waiting outside the Wells Fargo 
terminal and disappeared. Kopel said Tuesday 
Gerena is till believed to be hiding in Cuba.

According to FBI sources, Cuban intelligence 
officers provided training and financial support 
to Los macheteros, which is Spanish for 
machete-wielders or cane cutters. The former 
Cuban government of Fidel Castro helped smuggle 
the Wells Fargo money into Mexico. Cuba is 
believed to have kept about half the money.

With Gonzalez's arrest, only one other Wells 
Fargo suspect remains at large, his brother 
Norberto Gonzalez Claudio. Kopel said Norberto 
Gonzalez is believed to be hiding in Puerto Rico. 
A third fugitive, Machetero founder Filiberto 
Ojeda Rios, died in a shoot-out with FBI agents 
in the remote, southwest corner of the island in September 2005.

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

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