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Home > What's New > Prison Time for Cigar Smuggler
Prison Time for Cigar Smuggler
Posted: Thursday, June 10, 2004
By David Savona
Richard "Mick" Connors was sentenced yesterday to three years and one month in federal prison for smuggling Cuban cigars into the United States. Connors, a 54-year-old former public defender, is the author of Cigar Runners, a first-person novel about a man who smuggles millions of dollars worth of Cuban cigars into the United States.
Connors was convicted of trading with the enemy, smuggling, conspiracy and lying to a passport official. According to federal authorities, Connors made regular trips via Canada and Mexico to Cuba, where he bought cigars for $25 to $60 per box and resold them in the Chicago area for up to $400 per box. On April 7, 1996, Customs official William Whiting confiscated 46 boxes -- more than 1,100 cigars -- from Connors as he tried to cross the border between Canada and the United States.
In addition to his prison sentence, he also received a $6,000 fine.
In an interview with Cigar Aficionado Online on October 3, 2002, 11 days before his conviction, Connors said the government hadn't proven that the cigars found in his possession were Cuban. He claimed that there was a Canadian "gas spectrometry test" that could prove the identiy of a Cuban cigar, which the feds hadn't done, and blamed much of his problems on his book, Cigar Runners, which he said was fiction.
On page 361 of Cigar Runners, Connors wrote: "The boys at Loli's got five hundred boxes of cigars together in a couple of days. This was my last trip and I told them to get five hundred more. One thousand boxes of blackmarket cigars, smuggled out of Cuba, would bring in half a million dollars. Like my dear old Grandpa used to say, " 'I didn't raise you boys to go back, but if one of you wanders off in that direction, do it big and make me proud!' "
Connors served as his own attorney at his trial, and spoke of Cigar Runners in his opening statement. "I am here, the evidence will show, because I wrote a book," he said.
U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman denied Connors' request to attend his daughter's wedding this month and ordered him taken into custody immediately.
Millions of Cuban cigars make their way into the United States every year, despite the long-standing embargo against the importation of any Cuban goods valued at more than $100 into the United States. While confiscations are not uncommon, prosecution and jail time are exceptionally rare.
-- With reporting by Jim Mueller Also in Cigar News:
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