The media reporting was so detrimental that Battle did something he had never done before: he devised a public relations counterstrategy. He allowed two reporters from the Miami News, a rival of the Herald, into his home. “Everything the commission said isn’t true,” he told the reporters. “None of it is true.” Battle gave the reporters a tour of El Zapotal. He even let them look in his refrigerator. “This is the refrigerator of a millionaire? I eat yogurt.” The newspaper provided Battle with the press he desired, a portrait of a contented retiree far removed from the hustle and bustle of life in New York and New Jersey. The article was even accompanied by a photo of Battle playing with his pet monkey.
Back in New York, the fallout from the hearings was worse than just bad press. In September, Lalo Pons and ten others were arrested and charged with arson and multiple counts of murder. The prosecutor’s star witness would be Willie Diaz, who, after being investigated by cops and threatened with arrest, quickly agreed to become a cooperating witness. Throughout the summer, shortly after the federal commission hearings concluded, Willie had worn a wire and helped gather evidence against Lalo.
At a press conference to announce the indictment, Benjamin Ward, the city’s first black police commissioner, noted that all of these men were members of the Corporation, a group headed by Battle.
For years, El Padrino and his gambling syndicate had mostly operated with little attention from the mainstream press and not much more from law enforcement. Now that had changed.
Among those who saw the writing on the wall was Isleño Dávila, whose name had also been highlighted at the commission hearings. In August, a unit of the NYPD’s Public Morals division hit dozens of bolita holes belonging to La Compañía. Isleño came to New York to figure out what was happening. He was picked up for questioning by two detectives and driven around Harlem. They showed him where many of his spots had been padlocked and put out of business. “It’s over,” the detectives told him.
First the arsons, then the commission hearing had brought an unprecedented level of unwanted attention for the boliteros. Now, with the arrest and subsequent trial of Lalo Pons, the inner workings of the bolita empire would be further exposed.
Isleño returned to his home in Fort Lauderdale and immediately began a process of moving his millions out of the country. He made no public announcement that he was out of the bolita business, but those who knew him well—his family, friends, and associates—could see what was happening. Isleño was finished with bolita. Within the year, he had quietly moved out of the United States to Spain and eventually on to Panama. He was rarely seen again in New York, New Jersey, or South Florida, the locations where he had once held sway as a legendary bolita boss.
13
COCKFIGHTER
MIGUELITO BATTLE HAD STOPPED TALKING WITH HIS FATHER. THE REASONS FOR THIS were cumulative—a lifetime of emotional baggage and strained relations—but there had been a last straw. Sometime in early 1985, Maria Josefa Battle—Miguelito’s mother and José Miguel’s long-suffering wife—came home to El Zapotal one day to find her husband in bed with two young women. It was a final insult after years of José Miguel’s philandering. Maria Battle moved out of El Zapotal to a home at 350 Island Drive in Key Biscayne near her son. There was no talk of divorce, but from then on, she and her husband lived separate lives. She never again set foot on her husband’s estate, with the mamay trees and crowing roosters and women so young and nubile they could have been José Miguel’s granddaughters.
José Miguel’s treatment of Maria had been a sore spot with Miguelito for some time. Years before, he had been brought along by his father to a jewelry store in Manhattan to purchase a diamond ring for someone special. Miguelito assumed the ring was for his mother, but was disgusted to learn that José Miguel was buying it for his mistress. Which raised the question: what kind of man brings his son along to purchase an expensive gift for his mistress? To Miguelito, it was a personal insult; his father was rubbing it in his face that he was cheating on his mother. In a sense, Miguelito never forgave José Miguel for this transgression. He talked about it often with Abraham Rydz, the man who became his surrogate father.
And yet the two men, Battle Sr. and Jr., were still financially entangled in ways that made it impossible for them to simply ignore one another. Junior and Rydz had created a business empire that was at its core dependent on the stature and reputation of El Padrino. It was true that the Corporation was now a multitentacled operation, and that the bolita business in New York more or less ran itself. But contrary to the belief of Miguelito and Rydz that Union Financial Research and the other corporate subsidiaries comprised a self-sustaining business, in the mind of El Padrino, without his reputation—his legend—they were nothing.
In the Cuban American underworld, Battle was still the man. This could be either a good or a bad thing, depending on the motives of those who were banking on the boss’s stature. Bosses were feared, but they also became targets. And sometimes their sons became targets by association.
In 1985, not long after the Presidential Crime Commission wrapped up its hearings in New York and José Miguel Battle returned to Miami, his son was kidnapped. This was not an event that would make the newspapers or television news. The entire event was kept quiet by all involved, including the cops and federal agents who responded to the call.
Oscar Vigoa was at the time a sergeant in the Metro-Dade Police Department working a general investigations unit in the Midwest District. One afternoon, his unit received a call of a kidnapping and was told to report to a home at an address on SW 7th Street just off SW 87th Avenue.
Sergeant Vigoa had been on the job for seven years. In that time, Miami had become an international crime center, with cocaine flowing into the city from major Latin American hubs such as Medellín and Cali, and cash flowing out of the city to places like Panama City and offshore banks in the Caribbean. Vigoa was accustomed to arriving at crime scenes where there were layers of law enforcement, from local police squads to federal agencies—DEA, FBI, and ATF, all the way up to CIA. But what the sergeant encountered when he arrived at the house on SW 7th Street was surprising even to him.
“It was a beautiful home,” remembered Vigoa. “I thought, ‘Whoa, somebody big lives here.’ Right away, we were told, the victim is José Miguel Battle Jr. He’d been kidnapped by somebody, we didn’t know who. I’d heard the name of Battle Sr., but at the time I didn’t know much. Then the organized crime guys showed up. And then the feds. We were told, ‘Look, we got this. But we want you guys to stay. Take your unit and guard the perimeter. This guy Battle is a major player.’ ”
For the next three days, Vigoa and his unit of five detectives nearly lived at what they learned was the home of Battle Jr. Though Junior had purchased a lot and was having a home built in Key Biscayne, next to Abraham Rydz, he was still living at the home on SW 7th Street. His wife and two kids were on the premises, and they were terrified that their father was in serious trouble. A couple times during those three days, Battle Sr. showed up and took control of the situation.
“He seemed to be very calm,” said Vigoa. “The others, Battle Jr.’s family, were totally frightened, but El Gordo had the typical square face, cool, collected, like everything was under control.”
Over time, Vigoa learned from the organized crime detectives what was going on. It was believed that Battle Jr. had been kidnapped by some “major players,” quite possibly the team of Augusto “Willy” Falcon and Salvador “Sal” Magluta, the biggest cocaine traffickers in Miami. The rumor was that Battle had been getting involved in cocaine deals and stepped on some toes. Junior had been snatched off the street and was being held for ransom, though it was believed the act was more a warning to Battle Sr. than an actual moneymaking proposition.
The investigators were worried. Under their breath, they speculated that Junior was already dead, or that he would be “cut up” or marked in some way before being turned over to his family.
All of this made sense
to Sergeant Vigoa, who was tuned into the local crime scene in Miami. An old-school gangster like Battle had possibly overestimated his standing among the new-school narcotraffickers. Vigoa could see a kidnapping take place for those exact reasons. But what seemed strange was that at Junior’s house, while all the cops and agents and family members took part in some sort of ongoing negotiation for the release of Miguelito, leading the investigation were a handful of mysterious “feds” in suits and ties. Sergeant Vigoa couldn’t tell who they were. They weren’t FBI or DEA or any of the other federal agencies that he knew well. They may have been CIA or some other intelligence agency.
Also, it seemed odd that the entire negotiation was being run out of the victim’s house. The agents and cops never left that location, which to Vigoa created an air of secrecy that made the investigation seem unusual, to say the least.
“On the third day,” he remembered, “this guy walks in the door. The family members jump up and start hugging him. It’s Battle Jr. He’s been released.”
Battle Sr. showed up at the scene and shook the hands of the various federal agents who had been there for days. He told them they could go.
The entire matter was calmly resolved. Even so, for Vigoa, suspicions lingered that there was something not right about the entire incident. “Was a ransom paid? I don’t know. All I know is that our department received no paperwork from any federal agency, though a few were involved. It was as if this event never took place. The entire thing was swept under the rug.”
In the months that followed, Battle’s name kept popping up in various investigations that Vigoa was involved in. There was the judicial corruption case in which Alfonso Sepe, the judge who had ruled in Battle’s favor back in 1978, was removed from the bench. There were two significant narcotics cases. There was a gun smuggling case out of Miami International Airport that involved local Cuban exiles and the Contras, anticommunist rebels who were fighting against a leftist government in Nicaragua. Battle’s name was linked to all of these cases, but he was never charged with anything.
THE PUBLIC HEARINGS HELD BY THE PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION ON ORGANIZED CRIME showed a willingness on the part of law enforcement to shine a light on bolita. A few months later, in January 1987, Lalo Pons and his fellow arsonists were convicted at trial and sentenced to long prison terms. The primary witness against Pons was Willie Diaz. It was the most significant prosecution to date of Corporation operatives. At the same time, La Compañía, with Isleño Dávila having left the country, went into remission. These developments were significant, but they did not bring an end to bolita in New York. People still wanted to bet the number, and the idea of doing so with a well-established organization was still appealing. In that sense, the commission hearings and prosecutions did little to tarnish the reputation of the Corporation.
The broader context that gave rise to the Corporation was hardly touched upon during the hearings. There were references to Battle’s history as a member of the 2506 Brigade, and how the Corporation had initially been comprised of numerous veterans from the Bay of Pigs invasion. But the commission was mandated to explore and expose criminal activity, not political context. This context would receive increased scrutiny during an entirely different series of hearings held in the nation’s capital.
The Iran-Contra hearings, convened by order of the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, began in May 1987. The scandal that led to the hearings had been unfolding like a toxic spill for at least three years. For anti-Castro Cubans in the United States, support for the Contras, a group of anticommunist rebel fighters in Nicaragua, was an initiative rooted in the same smoldering cauldron of revenge politics that had served as an impetus—and justification—for the Corporation.
With the reelection of Ronald Reagan to a second term, the anti-Castro movement had been reinvigorated. Though underground terror squads like Alpha 66 and Omega 7 had been put out of business, and organized attempts to assassinate Fidel were now sporadic affairs, efforts to counter the spread of Castroism continued unabated. Covert operators, international mercenaries, spooks, and other soldiers of fortune had, in an effort to circumvent official government policies, became players in a secret history. In the 1980s, the new frontier was Central and South America.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front had shocked the world in 1979 when they overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle, whose family had ruled Nicaragua since 1936. The Somozas were products of American culture. Anastasio had been educated at St. Leo College Prep in Florida and attended the La Salle Military Academy on Long Island. He was also a graduate of West Point. Steeped in U.S. military philosophy, Somoza was a proxy of the right wing. The Sandinistas, on the other hand, were a leftist political movement that openly aligned themselves with Fidel Castro, whom they viewed as their spiritual godfather. The Reagan administration saw the Sandinista government as a Marxist-Leninist threat in the Western Hemisphere.
Nicaragua had always held a special place in the heart of Cuban militants. It was from the coast of Nicaragua, at Puerto Cabeza, that the Bay of Pigs invasion had been launched. When Battle and his fellow brigadistas were lined up and ready to board ships that would take them to Cuba, Anastasio Somoza’s older brother, Luis, who was president at the time, had made a personal appearance. Wearing a white suit, his face powdered with a layer of white theatrical makeup, he gave his blessing to the departing brigade and told the men, “Bring me a couple hairs from Castro’s beard.”
Somoza’s blessing did little to stave off disaster during the invasion, nor was the president able to alter the course of history in his own country, where a popular uprising would bring about dramatic changes similar to what had happened in Cuba.
The CIA was not about to stand by passively as Nicaragua fell to the communists. A confidential plan to topple the Sandinistas was put into effect as early as 1981. This involved supplying financial, logistical, and tactical aid to various anti-Sandinista groups that had sprung up in the wake of the coup. These groups were referred to as “the Contras,” meaning that they were against the prevailing powers in Nicaragua. Eventually, liberal members in Congress who felt that U.S. policy in Nicaragua was immoral and possibly against international law passed the Boland Amendment, which “prohibited the use of funds for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua.”
The Boland Amendment did not end the Reagan administration’s support for the Contras. The CIA and National Security Council (NSC) began a secret campaign of soliciting funds from other nations, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, while arms and other supplies continued to be smuggled to Contra rebels in the jungles of Central America.
Cuban American militants in general—and particularly those who had become actively involved in the anti-Castro movement in the United States—were natural sympathizers with the Contras. In Miami, it was like the mid-1960s all over again. It was estimated that between twenty thousand and sixty thousand Nicaraguans flooded into Miami in the wake of the Sandinista coup. Many were former Somoza government partisans, but some were men and women who had fought alongside the Sandinistas but became disenchanted once the rebels assumed power. Once again, the city of Miami became the host to a subculture of politically disaffected exiles. It also became fertile ground for the CIA, which was actively looking for recruits to serve as soldiers in a guerrilla-style military campaign against the Sandinista government.
Contra training camps were established in South Florida, primarily in the Everglades. The camps were clandestine, though many in the Cuban community were aware of their existence. It was similar to the days and months leading up to the Bay of Pigs invasion. CIA case agents and Cuban militants reunited in a common cause.
AMONG THOSE WHO TOOK PART IN SETTING UP THE CAMPS AND RECRUITING SUPPORT for the Contras were the Fuentes brothers, Ramon and Fidel. It had been more than two decades since the brothers joined José Miguel Batt
le to ride a truck into enemy territory to save their fellow members of the 2506 Brigade at the Bay of Pigs. Following their release from the Isle of Pines prison and return to Miami, the brothers went on with their lives but remained active in the anti-Castro movement. For many, the rebel war in Nicaragua was a call to arms. The Fuentes brothers became part of a campaign to raise money to purchase weapons for the Contras.
Among those to whom they reached out was Battle, their brigade brother.
As members of the 2506 Brigade Veterans Association, most everyone who took part in the invasion stayed in contact over the years. Every year on April 17, association members came from far and near to lay a wreath at the base of the Bay of Pigs Monument, a sculpture in Little Havana, on Calle Ocho, adorned with an eternal flame and the names of those who had died in combat or in captivity. In 1986, these gatherings became more formalized as the association purchased a house in Little Havana that was turned into a Bay of Pigs Museum. Artifacts such as weapons, uniforms, photographs, and other paraphernalia from the invasion were stored at the facility, which, in addition to being a museum open to the public, contained a small meeting hall where members regularly met to conduct business.
Many brigade veterans had gone on to distinguished careers as doctors, lawyers, and in positions of authority in various branches of the U.S. military. Some remained dedicated to the legacy of the brigade but played little or no role in the anti-Castro movement other than their status as veterans of the invasion. Others had made it their life’s work, and they came to the annual gatherings at the Bay of Pigs Museum to reestablish alliances and perhaps further commit themselves to the dream of a free Cuba. In the 1980s, much of the discussion was about the Contras, which had become the latest cause célèbre.
The Corporation Page 36