Battle Jr. sentenced to 15+ years, $642M forfeit

A federal court in Miami has sentenced Jose Miguel Battle Jr. to serve 15 years and eight months in prison and to forfeit $642 million in assets, according to a story in today's Miami Herald.


He was convicted of conspiring with his father and two other men in a racketeering venture known as "The Corporation" or "The Cuba Mafia." Authorities say the group was responsible for illegal gambling, drug trafficking, money laundering and murder in a territory that included New York City, New Jersey and south Florida, according to a Reuters story on Carribean Net News.

Prosecutors say Battle oversaw money-laundering operations in Peru, Spain, Panama, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, the Dominican Republica and the British Virgin Islands, as a participant in an underworld organization that engaged in "violence and intimidation, including the commission of multiple murders," according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

Jose Miguel Battle Sr. (left), an exile from Cuba and a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion, was sentenced in January to 20 years in prison.


Related MobNews posts:

• Ailing Cuban mobster gets 20 years 01-15-07
• Ailing Cuban mobster agrees to plea deal 05-04-06

Ailing Cuban mobster gets 20 years

Jose Miguel Battle Sr., once the boss of a Cuban-American criminal organization and a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, according to a story by Jay Weaver of the Miami Herald.

Battle, 77, was leader of "The Corporation," a criminal group controlling rackets in Florida, New Jersey, New York and Latin America. He is widely known as the master of the "bolita" lottery-style racket. He has been in custody since 2004. Last May, he pleaded guilty to a racketeering career spanning four decades. (Click for Battle biography on Wikipedia.)

Prosecutors speculated at that time that the ailing crime boss might not live long enough to be sentenced. He reportedly suffers from renal (kidney) failure and problems with his heart, liver and lungs. A part of a plea deal, sentencing was to be indefinitely postponed and Battle released on bond, so he could die at his home rather than in prison.

His son, Jose Miguel Battle Jr., faces sentencing in March.

Other MobNews post:

• Ailing Cuban mobster agrees to plea deal 05-04-06