Alan Gross Gets 3.2M Settlement From Feds Over Cuba Imprisonment
Image by getty images
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it has settled claims with a company that employed Alan Gross, the contractor freed last week after five years in a Cuban jail as part of a major shift in U.S.-Cuba relations.
USAID finalized the settlement with Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI) on Monday night for $3.2 million, according to a spokesman for the federal agency that handles aid to foreign countries.
CNN reported that Gross has received the $3.2 million.
Bethesda, Maryland-based DAI had been seeking $7 million in costs before the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, the spokesman said. DAI was waiting to receive a copy of the statement before issuing a response, a company spokesman said.
Gross had been jailed in Cuba since December 2009 until his release last week as the governments of the United States and communist-run Cuba restored diplomatic relations and swapped prisoners.
His detention was a major obstacle to improvement in U.S-Cuban relations after more than 50 years of hostility.
The settlement, agreed in principle in November, calls for payment by USAID for unanticipated claims under a cost-reimbursement contract, including claims related to Gross, USAID said in its statement.
“The settlement avoids the cost, delay and risks of further proceedings, and does not constitute an admission of liability by either party,” the statement said.
Gross was serving a 15-year sentence for providing Internet equipment to Jewish Cubans under a U.S. program that Cuba views as subversive. Information is tightly controlled on the Caribbean island, Internet use is limited, and visitors are not allowed to carry satellite technology.
The United States says Gross was merely helping Cubans get connected as part of a democracy-building project.
Gross and his wife Judy filed a $60 million lawsuit in November 2012 for gross negligence against DAI and the U.S. government. Gross settled with DAI for undisclosed terms in May 2013, and a U.S. district court rejected his claim against the government, which was upheld last month on appeal.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
