Alan Gross

Overview

Alan Phillip Gross (born May 2, 1949) is a former United States government contractor employed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In December 2009 he was arrested in Cuba while working on a program funded under the 1996 Helms–Burton Act, He was prosecuted in 2011 after being accused of crimes against the Cuban state for furtively bringing military-grade communication equipment designed to evade detection to members of Cuba's Jewish community. US sources widely rejected the idea that Gross was a spy, though some noted the "covert" nature of Gross's work. Gross noted in his field reports his awareness of the risks he was taking in his mission. He was released from Cuban prison on December 17, 2014, and returned to the US in exchange for the release and return of three Cubans convicted of espionage.

While serving his prison sentence, his wife Judy Gross, sued Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI) and USAID for $60 million in federal court. The company settled for an undisclosed sum. The amount is in addition to the $3.2 million that USAID agreed to pay Gross and DAI in the November before his release.

Life and career

Gross was born in Rockville Centre, New York. including Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was setting up satellite communications systems to NGOs. In 2001, he founded JBDC LLC, a small company that earned less than $70,000 in 2009, which supported "Internet connectivity in locations where there is little or no access," according to The New York Times. Gross and his wife Judy lived in Potomac, Maryland, a Washington, D.C. suburb. The couple have two daughters, Shira and Nina.

Background

Gross was working as a subcontractor to Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), the prime contractor working with USAID, which had won a $6 million U.S. government contract for the program in which Gross was involved, a controversial "democracy-promotion program" that ballooned under the George W. Bush administration, to provide communications equipment to break the Cuban government's 'information blockade.' The equipment he brought to Cuba on his fourth trip, most but not all of which is legal in Cuba, included 12 iPods, 11 BlackBerry Curve smartphones, three MacBooks, six 500-gigabyte external drives, three satellite modems known as BGANs, three routers, three controllers, 18 wireless access points, 13 memory sticks, three VoIP phones, and networking switches. In his report on this trip, marked as final, he summarized: "Wireless networks established in three communities; about 325 users".

However, he went to Cuba for a fifth time in late November 2009 and was arrested 11 days later. When he was arrested, he was carrying a high-tech chip, intended to keep satellite phone transmissions from being located within . The chip is not available on the open market. It is provided most frequently to the CIA and the United States Department of Defense, but can also be obtained by the United States Department of State, which oversees USAID. Asked how Gross obtained the card, a USAID spokesman said that the agency played no role in helping Gross acquire equipment.

Arrest

Gross was arrested on December 3, 2009, at the El Presidente Hotel, where he was staying. He was jailed first at Carlos J. Finlay Military Hospital, then Villa Marista prison, a detention center. According to leaked classified U.S. diplomatic cables, the arrest came amid heightened tensions between Cuba and the U.S. Gross spent 25 days in jail before receiving his first visit from a U.S. diplomat, but was visited by a Cuban attorney earlier and was allowed to telephone his wife four days after his arrest on December 6 for the first time and again on December 23. During the one-hour visit by the representative of the United States Interests Section in Havana on December 28, 2009, Gross stated that Cuban officials were "treating him 'with respect," though his interrogation had been "very intense at first," lasting an average of two hours a day.

According to the cable, the cell Gross had to share with two other men had a TV and a fan. The attorney who visited Gross in jail, Armanda Nuria Piñero Sierra, was hired as Gross's lawyer and handled his trial and appeals. She also represented the families of five Cubans held in U.S. prisons after being convicted in 2001 on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage against U.S. military installations, leading to the immediate speculation after Gross's arrest that Cuba wanted to swap him for the five. In October 2011, it was revealed that the U.S. State Department had offered to let one of them who had been released from prison in the U.S. on probation serve the remainder of his probation in Cuba in exchange for Gross's release. U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Gross's treatment was an attempt by Cuba to get a "concession".

Many Jewish groups, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the American Jewish Committee, protested against his detention.

Charges

In January 2010, Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the Cuban National Assembly, claimed that Gross was "contracted to work for American intelligence services," which was denied by both the U.S. government and Gross's attorneys. More than a year later, in February 2011, Gross was charged not with espionage but with "acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state" ("Actos Contra la Independencia o la Integridad Territorial del Estado"), a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Gross's trial was set for March 4, 2011.

Sentencing

On March 12, 2011, Gross was sentenced to 15 years in prison. According to the Cuban News Agency, he had been part of a "subversive project of the U.S. government that aimed to destroy the Revolution through the use of communication systems out of the control of authorities." Gross's wife and her U.S. attorney, along with three U.S. officials in the capacity as observers, attended the trial. Gross's case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Cuba, which affirmed the sentence in August 2011.

Reactions and advocacy

, D-Md., Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. watch television on board a U.S. government plane headed back to the U.S. as the news breaks of his release, Dec. 17, 2014. After the sentence was passed, Gross's American attorney, Peter J. Kahn, said in a written statement: "The Gross family is devastated by the verdict and harsh sentence announced today by the Cuban authorities. Having already served a 15-month sentence in a Cuban prison, Alan and his family have paid an enormous personal price in the long-standing political feud between Cuba and the United States." Kahn pledged to "continue to work with Alan's Cuban attorney in exploring any and all options available to him, including the possibility of an appeal." He also called for Gross's immediate release on humanitarian grounds.

Incarceration

In April 2014, he went on a hunger strike for nine days. In August 2014, his wife reported on their official website, www.bringalanhome.org, that Gross refused to see her or their daughter when they went to see him in Cuba, and also refused to see visitors from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, such as U.S. diplomats. In August 2014, his wife and daughter wrote on their official website that Gross told them not to visit him again and in December 2014 it was reported that they had not. Gross was housed in the Carlos J. Finlay Military Hospital with two other inmates who spoke Spanish. Gross reportedly spoke some Spanish. It was reported in December 2014 that Gross refused to be treated by doctors in Cuba and had threatened to go on hunger strikes if he was not unconditionally released.

Some of his favorite pieces include: "Finlay 1", "Villa Marista", and "Hay No Mucho Tiempo", among others.

Health

When arrested, Gross weighed . From the start of his incarceration, he lost considerable body weight. Gross refused medical and dental care. Gross's family hired a U.S. radiologist who claimed that the mass was improperly diagnosed, and that Gross could be suffering from cancer so Gross should be released on that basis. Gross's former lawyer, Jared Genser, issued a press release saying he had filed a petition with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. At the same time, "extremely concerned about Alan Gross's health," Meanwhile, the president of the Hebrew Community of Cuba (Spanish: "Casa de la Comunidad Hebrea de Cuba"), Adela Dworin, who visited Gross in jail several times, claimed that Gross "looked very agile" and was not particularly worried about the mass on his shoulder.

In November 2012, the Miami Herald reported that New York Rabbi Elie Abadie, who is also a physician, told the Associated Press that "Alan Gross does not have any cancerous growth at this time, at least based on the studies I was shown and based on the examination, and I think he understands that also," after personally examining Gross and receiving a briefing from a team of Cuban physicians who attended him. The Cuban Foreign Affairs Ministry, in a statement detailing a meeting between diplomats of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, a doctor and nurse from the U.S. mission, and members of the Cuban medical team that presented the results of the biopsy performed on the lesion behind Gross's right shoulder, confirmed that the hematoma was not cancerous.

The Cuban Government also maintained that Gross's health was normal for a man his age and that he was being properly treated after having stated a few months earlier that Gross, who was held at a military hospital, "could be held at any prison facility," meaning that he was in good and stable health. In December 2014, Gross released a statement complaining that his teeth had fallen out and that he had lost weight while at the same time stating that he was refusing all medical and dental care because he wanted to be immediately released from prison.

Lawsuits

In November 2012, Gross and his wife Judith sued DAI and USAID for failing to adequately prepare, train and supervise him given the dangerous nature of the program's activities. Reportedly, they were seeking $60 million compensatory damages. In November 2013, it was announced that DAI and Gross and his wife had reached a confidential settlement. Gross and his wife filed another lawsuit, reportedly seeking $10 million from Gross's insurer, the Federal Insurance Company, for benefits they say the company had denied.

Release

In November 2014, The New York Times called for the United States to engage in a prisoner swap with Cuba. On December 17, 2014, the Cuban government released Gross on humanitarian grounds and allowed him to return to the United States on a U.S. government plane. Some members of the Cuban Five were also released on December 17, 2014, although the governments characterized the two releases as being unconnected. This exchange was part of the larger Cuban thaw, which occurred for a brief period towards the end of the Obama administration, and which saw improvements in diplomatic and trade relations between the United States and Cuba.

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