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courant.com/news/local/hc-ctfargo0415.artapr15,0,5521230.story<br><br>
</font><h1><b>Courant.com<br><br>
<br>
</b></h1><h2><b>Puerto Rican Nationalist Tied To San Juan
Attacks</b></h2><font size=3>By EDMUND H. MAHONY<br><br>
Courant Staff Writer<br><br>
April 15, 2008<br><br>
<br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"Maybe that person fired the rocket," Bergenn said.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<br><br>
Contact Edmund H. Mahony at
<a href="mailto:emahony@courant.com">emahony@courant.com</a>.<br><br>
Copyright © 2008, <a href="http://www.courant.com/">The Hartford
Courant<br><br>
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