The Miami News
November 16, 1968

Exiles Guilty In Shelling

By IAN GLASS
Miami News Reporter
    A Federal Court Jury has rejected the claim of Orlando Bosch that a legendary "Ernesto" masterminded the shooting of foreign ships and has convicted Bosch himself as the "brains."
    Bosch, 42, an owl-eyed baby doctor, was convicted of conspiracy to attack the ships and of firing off threatening telegrams to the heads of Britain, Spain, and Mexico because those nations trade with Cuba.  Eight other Cuban exiles were convicted with him of conspiracy.
    The 12-member jury specifically decided Bosch was guilty of firing a .57-millimeter shell last Sept. 16 at the Polish Freighter Polancia docked at Dodge Island.  The shell dimpled the hull.
    Sentence was delayed pending a background investigation but Bosch could face up to 28 years in prison plus a total of $23,000 fines.  He and the others remained in jail under $50,000 bail each.
    The signature of "Ernesto" also appeared at the bottom of documents boasting of more than 40 bombings that have rocked the Miami area this year.
    Bosch mad a point during the trial of "revealing the identity of "Ernesto." His name, he said, was Pablo Vega.  The government contended that there was probably no such figure and that Bosch was the villain of the piece.  And the only identification Bosch offered of Pablo Vega was that he was a short, dark, muscular man.  And he said he didn't know where he was now.
    The eight other Cuban exiles who also were found guilty of conspiring to bomb foreign ships heard the verdicts stoically--except for the only woman defendant, Aimee Miranda Cruz, who sobbed silently.  It was in Aimee's apartment, according to the government, that the 57 mm. gun was assembled.  She lay in bed, reading a magazine at the time.
    It was a fellow-exile who won the case for the government.  Ricado Morales, a 29-year-old who once fought as a mercenary in the Congo, was arrested for allegedly bombing a stare that forwarded parcels to Cuban and decided to cooperate with the FBI.
    From last April onward, he supplied dud dynamite to Bosch and attended Cuban Power meetings with a tape recorder strapped on his body by the FBI.  On one tape, Bosch was heard to say, "I am going all the way.  We have hit very hard--first one ship, then another ship, then another."
    Federal Judge William O. Mehrtens said he would delay sentencing pending an investigation of the nine defendants' backgrounds.  Meanwhile, Melvyn Greenspahn, attorney for all nine, said he would appeal the verdicts.