American who hijacked Miami-bound jetliner to Cuba to plead guilty to new kidnapping charge

Posted on Thursday, 05.01.14

American who hijacked Miami-bound jetliner to Cuba to plead guilty to
new kidnapping charge
BY JAY WEAVER
JWEAVER@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Williams Potts Jr., the self-described black militant who hijacked a
U.S. jetliner to Cuba 30 years ago, plans to plead guilty to a new
kidnapping charge Thursday that will help him avoid a minimum-mandatory
20-year prison sentence for the original charge, air piracy.

The former New Jersey man, who commandeered the Miami-bound commercial
jet to Havana in 1984, finally surrendered to U.S. authorities in
November after living the life of a prisoner and fugitive in Cuba. Potts
said he wanted to face the American justice system and reconnect with
his two daughters now residing in the United States.

Assistant federal public defender Robert Berube negotiated the plea
agreement with prosecutors, but language preventing him from commenting
about his client's incarceration in Cuba delayed Potts' hearing on the
deal this week. It would allow Potts, now being held in the Miami
Federal Detention Center, to get some credit for the 13 years of prison
time he served in Cuba for the hijacking.

In November, Potts, 57, entered a not-guilty plea to the air-piracy
charge, which carries between 20 years and life in prison. The U.S.
attorney's office plans to drop that charge, after Potts agrees to plead
guilty to the new kidnapping offense in Fort Lauderdale federal court on
Thursday.

Although that new offense carries up to life in prison, it gives U.S.
District Judge Robin Rosenbaum leeway to craft a prison sentence that
takes into account Potts' lengthy incarceration in Cuba. The kidnapping
offense imposes no minimum-mandatory punishment.

During the defendant's bond hearing in November, a prosecutor said that
Potts "described what he did as an act of terrorism" to federal agents
who brought him back from Havana early that month.

Potts also confessed to air piracy verbally and in writing after he was
formally arrested by FBI agents at Miami International Airport on Nov.
6, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Medetis told a federal magistrate judge
during the bond hearing.

Judge Jonathan Goodman granted the prosecutor's request that Potts be
held before trial because he is both a risk of flight and danger to the
community, citing a potentially long prison sentence and the legal
"presumption" of detention for such an offense.

An FBI affidavit describing the case said Potts claimed to have
explosives aboard the New York-to-Miami flight on March 27, 1984,
demanding its diversion to Havana.

Potts, aka "Lt. Spartacus," described himself then as a black militant
who threatened to blow up the Piedmont Airlines jet and kill passengers
if it landed in Miami, according to a note he handed to the flight crew.
He also demanded $5 million.

An FBI agent, Affell Grier, testified at the bond hearing that Potts
"explained that he committed the crime" and "wrote out a statement"
after his recent arrest at MIA.

In interviews in Cuba, Potts said he wanted to return home and face
justice after all these years. He got married while living in Cuba, and
his two daughters now live in the United States.

In the interviews, Potts said that when he hijacked the Piedmont flight
to Cuba, he had hoped to be welcomed in the communist-run island nation
as a revolutionary and be given guerrilla training.

Instead, the Castro government arrested him, tried him for the
hijacking, and imprisoned him. Potts' commandeering of the airliner came
several years after a wave of similar hijackings had largely subsided.

According to the FBI, Potts paid $119 for the ticket he used to hijack
the Piedmont flight. An aunt in Paterson, N.J., said she had given him
$120 the day before to pay her electric bill and had not seen him since.

Source: American who hijacked Miami-bound jetliner to Cuba to plead
guilty to new kidnapping charge - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/01/4091472/american-who-hijacked-miami-bound.html