BANGOR, Maine — A federal court has dismissed a Stockton Springs woman’s claim against the nation of Cuba because her lawyer has been unable to verify serving papers to the controversial Caribbean country. But the woman’s Lewiston lawyer said the U.S. court action is procedural only and that her case remains viable.
Sherry Sullivan believes her father, Geoffrey Sullivan, was shot down while flying over Cuba in 1963, captured, tortured and held for 10 or more years. The Cuban military then executed him as a spy, she believes, based on extensive research.
Sullivan won a $21 million judgment against Cuba in state court in 2009. With interest, that judgment is now worth almost $26 million. She filed suit in federal court earlier this year to enforce the judgment.
On Wednesday, Dec. 26, U.S. District Court Judge George Singal dismissed the case because Sullivan’s lawyer has been unable to serve the Cuban government with the judgment. The dismissal “without prejudice,” according to Sullivan’s attorney David Van Dyke, is the court saying, in essence, “You haven’t been able to achieve service. Take a break, come back to us when you’ve achieved it.”
The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with the authoritarian regime in 1961, and imposed isolating travel restrictions and an economic embargo.
“Serving,” or proving that the Cuban government has been notified of the judgment, has been a daunting task, Van Dyke said Thursday.
Documents from the Waldo County Superior Court judgment are believed to have been delivered to the government through the Swiss embassy in 2008, but were ignored.
Sending documents directly to Cuba resulted in them being blocked by its customs officials. “They’re not stupid,” Van Dyke said.
Efforts also have been made to make the service through Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada and other embassies with which Cuba has relations. Van Dyke said service was even attempted on Cuban cargo ships, but to no avail.
If the United States normalizes relations with Cuba, Van Dyke and Sullivan said Thursday, this and other judgments likely would be settled, though the actual payments might be significantly less.
Sullivan had not heard about the court ruling until she was contacted by the Bangor Daily News on Thursday. She said she remains committed to the fight.
“It never was about the money,” she said. “I’d like to have my father’s remains returned.”
Sullivan believes she has nailed down most of the details of her father’s disappearance. He was 29, an Air Force veteran with a commercial pilot’s license serving in the Army National Guard. He then met Alexander Irwin Roake Jr., a New York newspaperman who was believed to be an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. Roake reportedly ran guns to Cuba.
Sullivan took off from Mexico in a twin-engine plane, accompanied by Roake, before he disappeared.
The official story was that the plane disappeared over Central America. The Department of Veterans Affairs has listed Geoffrey Sullivan as “missing in action.”
A month earlier, the men allegedly had taken part in a bombing run over Cuba in a refurbished B-25 bomber, an act that received widespread newspaper coverage. Both men were identified as having been involved.
OK really? How much time an money is spent on a case like this that all of us knows have zero chance of being won or paid for.
Sherry basically would like to know what happened to her Dad. Some of the agencies possibly involved, for example CIA, aren’t known for their candor!
While we can all likely sympathize with her need to have answers, in this article the focus is on her attempt to enforce a monetary judgement. Again, are we paying for this?
Of course “we’re” not paying for this.
Why do you even ask such a question?
As someone whose own father’s life was possibly put at risk by this man, it’s hard for me to have too much sympathy for him. The United States was not at war with Cuba at the time, making him a war criminal under international law. While his daughter has no doubt suffered not knowing his fate — and for that I am truly sorry — she is hardly entitled to extract such a huge sum from the people of Cuba.
How is it possible that he put your father’s life at risk?
Mr. Sullivan (together with Alexander Rorke Jr., an apparent CIA agent masquerading as an NBC newsman who was the son-in-law of the racist owner of the Stork Club, ex-bootlegger and petty criminal Sherman Bilingsley) conducted an aerial bombing raid in April, 1963 against an oil refinery in Havana where my father was then living. Later that year, he was apparently involved in criminal activity over the Escambray Mountains in Cuba in support of American-sponsored mercenaries. That activity from the air may have included further bombing, the supplying of arms and other supplies and possibly even the dropping of biological agents calculated to kill off Cuba’s swine, an important source of protein in a nation suffering through serious nutritional privations deliberately induced by the United States. My father was at that time in the Escambray leading a portion of the Cuban military force that ultimately defeated and drove off those scum.
Doesn’t this make your father also a war criminal?
No
Having the pleasure of knowing several Cubans in NYC and Miami I can tell everyone reading this that they, at least, consider people like Ms Sullivan’s father heroes.
Underlying issue is the Geneva Convention and how it was
being ignored by BOTH sides.