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ROTt Er r'r-.Z. long hair and a . reddish WHEN IT HAPPENED, in " Scheduled for arraignment Herald Staff Writer beai-d, got out •and gave the 1968, Sturgis told reporters it in Miami Sept. 10, Sturgis The ncy; Mexican border guards a dol- was a commando raid on now is in the federal prison Olds, Fri 1.1ce.7-e La, 10F.- lar each. He went inside the Castro's Cuba. in.Danbury, Conn., serving a '3017, a C:=7: Iron K:n--; borde7 station and gave their • 40-year provisional sentence Motor Co., La”.f"er.--ale, ea:I:a:a 53. • Now, almost five years for his part in the Watergate pulled into the Mexican bor- later to the day, the U.S. Jus- break-in. der station on 'a Sunday he • .Olds crossed into tice Department is preparing night, dusty from a long Mexico without a search. to prosecute him and six In Texas, a codefendant, drive. That was the beginning . of other South Florida men on former South Florida resi- the Mexican caper of Frank charges that the mysterious dent Jerry Buchanan, -has There were three men in Fiorini, alias Frank Sturgis, Mexican mission really was a claimed the whole 'car theft .the car, and a bag of oranges Watergate burglar, and his conspiracy to smuggle stolen case merely is a governinent lay on the shelf under the South Florida • soldiers of automobiles out of the Unit- rear window. fortune. ed States. Turn to Page 10A Col. 1 Three things made this car different from others coming into Mexico from Texas on a hot September weekend. .The Olds had a very hard ploy to force Sturgis to_ talk back seat. It weighed more about the 1972 burglary of than General Motors ever the Democratic National -meant it to. And it eventually Committee headquarters. would be listed as stolen. WHAT REALLY happened - THE BACK SEAT was during the 1968 Mexican ad- solid as a stone because the venture until now has been a springs had been removed closely guarded secret, and replaced with disassem- known only to the partici- bled rifles. The Olds was pants and, possibly, the FBI overweight because the side agents who have been track- panels had- been stuffed with ing them for five long years. handguns, ammunition, guer- Last week. however, Rob- rilla warfare training manu- pert Curtis of Pompano Beach, als and military uniforms. *a member of Sturgis's "Se- And the car would be list- cret Army Organization" and ed as stolen because King :a key government witness Motor Co. never would see it ,scheduled to testify at this again. :month's upcoming trial, told - The driver, a skinny young his story in an exclusive man with sharp blue eyes, interview with The Herald. - With Sturgis on record as ;claiming the entire affair was an anti-Communist foray :against Castro, and with the `iustice Department claiming it was merely a cover for :car theft, Curtis takes a --middle position. - According to him, it was some of both. And Robert :Curtis has reason to know. He was the bearded man who drove the red-and-white -Olds across the border. And `later he did the same with two other allegedly stolen cars listed in the government 'indictment. As Curtis relates it, the whole thing began with a —Associated Press Wirephoti classified ad. Sturgis On Way to Washington, D.C., Jai; Watergate APPEARING SPORADI- . . . after arrest in CALLY in various newspa- pers in July and August 1968, in hand, standing proudly on --the ad called for "young men the fresh mass grave of 75 FIVE YEARS ago this icate forms and blank regis- interested in adventure, in- Batista loyalists executed by weekend, Curtis and other tration forms." trigue and foreign travel." the Castro regime. members of the group pre- Armed with the typewriter pared to leave for Mexico. kit and a Gulf Oil travel card 7.:• It indicated that the work Later, he switched sides Curtis recalls the experience was with a mercenary army and claimed to have made a in the name of Charles Con- as "just like going back in nell, Curtis and Brown went .".in South America. Pay was daring propaganda raid in the service . . . :"described as "very high." which anti-Castro leaflets al- to Brownsville. Tex., and "I quit my job and sold my rented a 1969 maroon Ford --Those interested were invited legedly were dropped from a car and my truck. I pur- to contact Col. Francisco plane over Cuba. Sturgis - Torino with a black stripe on chased a rifle with a scope. the side. Quesada in care of Ray or Fiorini, as he 'then was Then there was a delay, and I Sandstrom, a Fort Lauder- known — was a controver- sat for a week in a motel in "We put on a Florida tag *-dale lawyer. sial soldier of fortune, and Fort Lauderdale, waiting." and throw away the Texas tag." Then they drove the car When reporters inquired precisley the kind of man The waiting. would be }'about the ad in 1968, who might advertise for Curtis's eventual undoing, into Mexico. ';Sandstrom, who 's pent followers who wanted adven- for it was then that he rented ,weekends flying cargo to Sai- ture, danger, and high pay. that red-and-white Oldsmo- LESS THAN a week later, :gon for Airlift International "He told us men with two bile, vehicle indentification according to the indictment, as a part-time pilot, said the kinds of experience would number 354878D118437. Curtis was at it again, on or- 'ad was placed without his get preference for this job," In what the U.S. Attor- d e r s from Sturgis and *knowledge. Curtis says. "Ex-cons and ney's office admits may be a Buchanan. military." self-serving claim by their Curtis remembers 'this trip Last week, however, There were more meetings. prospective witness, Curtis as the wildest one: "Frank Sandstrom told The Herald blames Sturgis for the car's said, 'Bob, you got to go back that the advertisement ap- According to the indictment, they continued "during July, ending up in Mexico. into Texas and get another :geared after Sturgis "asked "Frank said, 'You're gonna car. You have 15 minutes to ..me if he could use my ad- August and September of 1968 . . at various loca- have to take the rental car.' I get ready.'" dress to get some mail, and I said, 'What do you mean? Curtis took a bus to .let him." tions," including Sturgis's residence at 2515 NW 122nd That car's rented in my Brownsville. This time he Sandstrom . said Sturgis St. name.' He said, . 'That's all used the Gulf card to pick up . a red 1969 Mustang so new ;told him the mail concerned Sturgis was present, right.' " an anti-Castro mission into the (If Sturgis indeed said it that the odometer showed indictment charges, as were 'only three miles. Averaging -Mexico; no one, according to codefendants Jerry Buchanan was all right, he was wrong. :him, said anything about car In 1969, a• Broward County 110 m.p.h., Curtis sped back and Max Gonzalez (also :across the border. The car :theft. known as Max Gorman) and jury took just 20 minutes to find Curtis guilty of unautho- had 800 miles on it when he two unindicted coconspira- got to Guadalajara. y. ALONG WITH others who tors, Richard G. Brown and rized use of the car, a crime *answered the ad, Robert Robert Curtis.- for which he went to jail.) :Curtis was told that the mys- "I FELT kind of bad about terious "Col. Quesada" was ACCORDING TO the it, because the rental guy CURTIS SAYS Sturgis told said he just had two, and :in charge. Sandstrom said the others that he was orga- indictrrient, the rented Olds :Quesada "may be Cuban," was one of at least three somebody had taken one, and nizing a "Secret Army Orga- what was thinking was, , 'and Sturgis described Quesa- nization" to "attack Castro South Florida cars that :cla as a former Cuban doctor- entered Mexico with `Well, now you don't have ships and stop trade with any."' :Who had fled into exile and Cuba, and eventually attack Sturgis's self-styled army. *formed a "Secret Army Orga- -Max Gonzalez allegedly Finally, the time came to Cuba itself." launch the long-promised :nization" in Venezuela. Curtis. then 31 and a for- drove a new red Chevrolet, There was some vague mer Marine, was impressed. ; and Lomen Ray Bruce trans- commando raid. The group talk, later, that the colonel "Frank painted a beautiful ported a new ivory-colored moved to Progreso, Mexico, was flying as a mercenary in picture. He said he was the Chevrolet. The ivory Chevy, and boarded a yacht called the Congo. No one ever saw phantom flyer who had drop- like the Olds, was a rented the Amigo. The Mexican cap- him. Government sources are ped leaflets over Cuba. He car. It isn't clear where the tain later claimed the Ameri- -now convinced that "Col. said we was going in and in- red one came from, and the cans hijacked his ship. Curtis Quesada" actually was filtrate with the Cuban peo- government does not claim it confirms it, saying the cap- Sturgis. ple in the mountains, and 50 was stolen. tain and his mate were • forced at gunpoint to sail per cent of them. would join By October 7, At any rate it was Sturgis, the indict- where Sturgis told them. identifying himself as "Frank us. ment says, the Floridians "He said it could be a one- traveling in the various cars The directions apparently 1 Fiorini," who greeted the 50 weren't overly expert. The • men who answered the ad way trip, but we could make had regrouped in Guadala- $60,000 in three years. and jara, Mexico. According to raiders never came anywhere and came to a meeting in the near Cuba. The Amigo ran _back room of a truck sales we'd have a $10,000 insur- Curtis, the cars disappeared ance contract. and the would-be freedom aground on the reefs off Brit- company on Miami's NW ish Honduras, and the ' sol- 36th Street. "I thought it was an ad- fighters "hung' around a venture." Mexican motel." diers of fortune found them- According to Curtis, he selves jailed in that-country's ANYONE WHO KNEW Then, Curtis says, he and capital, Belize. much about the anti-Castro and about 15 others signed Richard Brown were told formal contracts with, the What happened after that • movement in Miami had that "we had to go back to is not altogether clear. Curtis heard of Frank Fiorini. He "Secret Army Organization," Texas and rent another car. and Sturgis stamped the is under the impression, that had fought with Castro, and Frank had a typewriter with George Smathers, then a U.S. -once was photographed, gun contracts with a notary's a leather case. Sewn into the seal, but kept all the copies. senator from Florida, case were Florida license intervened on behalf of the tags, blank titles, birth certif- Sturgis group. But his ac- count admittedly is based only on what he says Sturgis told him: Sun., Sept. 2, 1973 40-A THE MIAMI HERALD "THEY LET FRANK make boat, he insisted. a phone call. He called Sen. "We planned to stage the Buchanan's argument- that Smathers in Washington, raid with about 40 men after the car theft conspiracy case D.C., and then he (Sturgis) the rendezvous,"he said. is merely a government move to pressure Sturgis into talk- came back and told us we Curtis, who claims to have ing about Watergate. were going to get some polit- been at Sturgis's side during ical help." most of the mission, never (In a recent interview in . Efforts to reach Sinathers heard of the second boat or Texas, Buchanan questioned for comment were unsuccess- the additional men. the timing of the indict- ful last week, although mes- Nor, Curtis says, has he ments. "Why, after five sages were left with his ever seen any of the "very years, do they bring up these Miami and Washington offic- high" pay he was promised. charges?" he asked.) es. On his return to the states, Pressed to explain why it It seems clear that some- he was interviewed by the took the government five body in Washington stepped FBI and told to go home. For years to get around to prose- in to help because six months, the entire affair cuting car theft, U.S. Attor- Sandstrom, the Fort Lauder- seemed to be over. . ney Robert W. Rust of Miami dale lawyer, says he got a explained that "we wanted to call "from a man at the State THEN ONE DAY he include all possible evidence" Department, wanting to parked his custom Corvette and that some of the evi- know if I could go down to in front of a Fort Lauderdale dence had to be gathered in British Honduras and repre- Seven-I 1 and found himself Texas, and some in Florida, s e n t them (the Sturgis surrounded by policemen. He which made for a disjointed group)." was charged with stealing investigation. • It wasn't necessary. Three the rented Oldsmobile, and at a time, the men were freed convicted of the lesser UNLIKE BUCHANAN, and flown to the United charge of unauthorized Curtis is satisified with the States, where they were not possession. government's explanation arrested upon their return. Curtis is the only member that it simply took a long of -the Sturgis group yet to go time to put the case together. "It seemed strange: to me," to jail as a result of the Mex- ,Sandstrom says. "I gather it But Curtis admits he has ican mission. He has agreed (the raid) had the tacit ap- plenty of unanswered ques- to testify as proval a federal wit- tions of his own. -of somebody in the ness, and he says government, or they would a federal Was the mysterious "Col. prosecutor has told him the have been in trouble." Quesada" really just another , case involves more than 100 name for Sturgis, alias stolen cars. SOME OF THE reporters Fiorini? • Curtis disagrees with who interviewed Sturgis When Sturgis spoke upon his return to Miami vaguely of higher-ups, telling were skeptical as to whether the men that he was receiv- the raid actually was intend- ing orders from someone ed to reach Cuba. They above him, was he referring pointed out that to sail from to the CIA? Progreso, supposedly for Or was the great anti-Cas- Cuba, and to hit Honduras tro expedition merely a high- instead is to miss the ostensi- ly original cover for car ble target by. nearly 400 theft, as the government con- miles. tends? Sporting a gray-streaked . Curtis has his own opin- beard, the chubby, dark ion: haired Sturgis stood his "He (Sturgis stole the cars • ground. The plan had been to to finance the expedition. He ,rendezvous with another was sincere about fighting Castro — Frank's whole life was to fight the Communists. "The problem was how he done it," Curtis says. "Frank was just a born con man. He'd lie to you and make you believe it. "He said there was thou- sands of dollars in Swiss end Bahamas banks to cover the organization. _ "He said there was big money behind him in a lot of South American countries. "He really set us up...and . he could of got us all killed." Sturgis' Mexican Adventurers Sometimes Mei at His Miami Residence the house, at 2515 NW 122nd St., was one of several places the group held sessions