Background
He settled in a Cuban community in New Jersey with his mother.
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Virgilio Romero
Edit ProfileCareer
Paz"s family left Santa Clara, Cuba in the mid-1960s when he was 14. In 1966 while his family was in Mexico City awaiting papers to emigrate to the United States, Paz"s father died. Paz and Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel followed in sedan.
Paz detonated a bomb placed under Letelier"s car as it reached Sheridan Circle on Washington"s Embassy Row.
The blast killed Letelier and Ronni Moffit. Taking the name "Francisco Luis (Frank) Baez", Paz Romero was active in the community and owned a landscaping business in Boynton Beach, Florida since 1985.
On April 24, 1991, he was captured without incident while driving to work a few days after he was profiled on an episode of America"s Most Wanted. The segment featured an age progressed portrait of Paz Romero drawn by forensic artist Karen T. Taylor.
In July 1991, Paz Romero pleaded guilty in the conspiracy to assassinate Letelier, and on September 13, 1991, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
He was paroled after serving half of his sentence, and an immigration judge ordered him deported. Given that the United States did not have a deportation agreement with Cuba, he was placed into indefinite custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In July 2001 after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that indefinite detentions were unconstitutional, Paul Huck of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered Paz Romero released.
Membership
When he was 16, Paz was the youngest member of the Cuban Nationalist Movement.
