Jan 15 2007
HEAD OF MOB GROUP GETS 20-YEAR SENTENCE
Jose Miguel Battle Sr., the ailing padrino of the Cuban mob, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a racketeering conviction in Miami federal court.
Another defendant, Julio Acuña, received life imprisonment. The sentences were handed down Friday.
Battle’s son, Jose Miguel Battle Jr., faces sentencing in March.
The elder Battle was the boss of ”The Corporation,” a Cuban-American crime syndicate that stretched from Florida to New York to Latin America.
In the federal conspiracy case, Battle, his son, Acuña, and three other defendants were accused of five premeditated murders, four arson attacks resulting in eight deaths, and more than $1.5 billion collected during four decades of illicit activity — including drug trafficking, illegal bookmaking and bolita numbers rackets. Battle’s organization began in New York in the mid-1960s with illegal gambling, including the bolita, or ”little ball,” lotteries popular in Cuba.
The Corporation used arson and murder to intimidate or eliminate rivals and other threats, such as witnesses willing to testify against the organization, according to federal prosecutor Tony Gonzalez.
Posted on Mon, Jan. 15, 2007, By JAY WEAVER, MiamiHerald.com, http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16465327.htm
