No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

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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.

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