[NYTr] Traveler to Cuba Under Fake Religious License Is Sentenced
 
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:13:00 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[If you want to stand up for your constitutional rights, you don't ask
for a "license" from the Feds to travel to Cuba -- for profit, no less.
And using fake churches. Oy. If you care about your constitutional
rights, don't recognize the US Government's claim it can take your
right to travel away from you. Just get on a plane and go. -NY Transfer]

The Miami Herald - Oct 13, 2007
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/270206.html

Cuba travel ban violator sentenced

BY JORGE VALENCIA

A South Florida businessman was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison
Friday morning for conspiring in a scheme to violate Cuba travel
restrictions through licenses of bogus churches.

Victor Vazquez, 40, of Pompano Beach, was sentenced in a Miami federal
court by U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck as one of the country's first
defendants charged for illegally obtaining religious travel licenses to
circumvent a more than 44-year-old travel ban to Cuba.

The case has triggered other investigations by a U.S. Attorney's task
force targeting violators of the trade embargo against Cuba.

Vazquez, a former small business owner, had earlier pleaded guilty for
conspiring to defraud the U.S. government.

David Margolis, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of filing a false
government application, will be sentenced on Monday.

The 76-year-old is a Fort Lauderdale real estate magnate who amassed a
small fortune developing shopping centers and office parks through
South Florida during the past 30 years.

A government investigation revealed a clever business model that
allowed thousands of Cuban Americans to shuttle to and from Cuba.

In one instance cited in the court indictment, an application for
religious travel was filed on behalf of a fake First Church of Christ.
Local travel agencies then distributed letters authorizing travel to
Cuba related to the church.

A presentencing report last month said Vazquez sold the use of his
licenses to 6,500 travelers.

Also sentenced on Friday were Vazquez's ex-wife, Kekalani Vazquez, and
a Hialeah travel agent, Yury Rodriguez.

Kekalani Vazquez had been enlisted by her husband and received three
years of probation.

Rodriguez was a salesman at an agency connected with the scheme and
received one year and one day in prison.

Vazquez and Rodriguez are scheduled to go to prison in January.
Negotiating the date with the court, Celeste Higgins, Vazquez's
attorney, said her client is helping investigators looking into similar
schemes.

''This appears to be only the tip of the iceberg,'' she told the judge.

The attorney also cited Vazquez's recent marriage to a woman he met in
Cuba.

Letters from a neighbor, business partners, friends and family filed
with the court this week cited benevolent work he has done, which
including helping a girl with cancer get a prosthetic leg, and
mentoring an autistic niece.

B) 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.

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