Cases of Cuban estates in litigation

Cases of Cuban estates in litigation
Posted on Mon, Oct. 15, 2007

After several attempts to leave Cuba, Lloren Lazo Febles took to the sea
in a hand-made boat that sank near the coast of Mexico in 1994. Shortly
thereafter, he crossed the border into Texas and settled in the United
States. He lived and worked in Los Angeles and Las Vegas before moving
to South Florida in December 1996.

In Miami, he worked for almost a year at Inter-American Leasing near
Miami International Airport. He frequently sent money to his relatives
in Cuba.

On June 21, 1997, Lazo Febles, 38, was killed in an accident caused by
the driver of a rented car at the intersection of Le Jeune Road and
Northwest 18th St.

In 2000, a Miami-Dade judge ordered Enterprise Rent-A-Car, based in St.
Louis, to pay $2 million to the victim's heirs.

Lawyers Enrique Zamora and Jose Valdes dealt with the estate, which was
divided between Lazo Febles' only heirs: sons Lloren Lazo Santamaria,
then 15, and Lloren Lazo Gomez, then 20.

The older son remained in Cuba and has received quarterly remittances of
$300 since 2004. The younger son emigrated with his mother to the United
States in February 2002 and collected his entire share when he became 18
years old.

Lazo Santamaria settled in Miami and bought himself a motorcycle. On
June 21, 2006, the ninth anniversary of his father's death, the young
man was killed in a traffic accident as he rode his motorcycle.

William Ramirez arrived in the United States in 1994 after spending
months as a refugee in the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay. Ramirez,
23, left his elderly parents in Cuba. They were infirm and lived in a
dilapidated home in the Havana neighborhood of Arroyo Naranjo.

Ramirez died in July 2000 in a road accident attributed to defects in
the Firestone tires of his Ford Explorer.

At the insistence of Valdes and Zamora, Ramirez's parents, Caridad and
Antonio, took part in a class-action suit against Ford and Firestone. In
May 2001, the Ramirezes were awarded $1.7 million in an out-of-court
settlement.

The father, Antonio Ramirez, died in Cuba in summer 2002. The Ramirezes'
will stipulated that, if either spouse died, the share of the deceased
would go to their daughter, Liuban, an accountant for a tourist agency
in Havana. Beginning in 2004, Luiban and her mother received individual
remittances from the account frozen in the United States.

Cuba has protested over the ''freezer policy'' that withholds the
$10,000 due to chess grandmaster Guillermo Garcia, who won second place
in the New York Open Chess Tournament in 1988. Garcia died in 1990 at
the age of 36 in a traffic accident in Santa Clara, Cuba.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/272189.html