It starts like this: at around 9 a.m. on Nov. 12, Arletis Blanco Perez departed the Florida Keys in her brother’s 21-foot Mako fishing boat with four others–her Cuban-born boyfriend, their 18-month-old daughter, the boyfriend’s cousin and Jonathon, whose father is Blanco’s ex-husband Jon Colombini. After a rough trip, the party landed in Bahia Honda on the western end of Cuba later that day.
What was Blanco, 29, fleeing? Authorities suspect that she embezzled roughly $150,000 from her employer, McKenzie Petroleum of Tavernier, Fla., an oil distributor. She reportedly admitted as much in three audio tapes that she left behind for her relatives. In them, according to the local sheriff’s department, Blanco fretted about getting caught for stealing the cash and bringing shame on her family. She also hinted that she was thinking of committing suicide. Distressed, her parents took the tapes to Blanco’s bosses, who had regarded Blanco as a trustworthy manager of their office in Marathon, Fla. “She was a hell of an employee,” said Greg McKenzie. “Everything was peachy.” His wife even threw Blanco a baby shower for her daughter.
Still, in hindsight, McKenzie says there were troubling signs. Concerned about long-due payments, he and his wife took over some of Blanco’s sales- and payment-collection duties, possibly raising a warning flag for her. She may have pulled off a final swindle. On her last Friday, says McKenzie, Blanco went to collect from two customers in Key West; one owed $2,500, the other $1,900. Claiming the company was about to change its name, she persuaded them to write blank checks–then cashed them in her name, McKenzie told authorities.
Blanco set sail without the permission of ex-husband Colombini, 31, a violation of their shared-custody arrangement. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department has issued an arrest warrant for Blanco for interference with custody and opened an investigation into the alleged embezzlement. The FBI and the State Department also have agreed to help Colombini. Cuba and the United States do not have an extradition treaty, but Colombini is banking on a diplomatic solution. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get my son back,” he told reporters in Miami. So far, said his lawyer, Michael Berry, the Cubans “have been extremely cooperative.” As soon as he and Colombini get permission, he added, they will travel to Cuba.
That doesn’t mean they’ll come back with little Jonathon. Blanco seems intent on starting a new life with her kids in Cuba. According to a report last week in the Cuban press, Blanco was staying with her boyfriend’s relatives in the western province of Pinar del Rio. “If you are a good parent, you are a good parent in a rich country, in a poor country, in a communist country, in a free country,” she said in her first comments to foreign media. “Here, because of the tranquillity, [the children] will have more freedom.” The embezzlement issue wasn’t addressed. Though she refused to allow reporters to see her kids, Colombini said he finally managed to speak to Jonathon over the phone and that the boy believed he was on vacation.
The confrontation between the parents is getting ugly. As reported in the local press, Blanco told Cuban officials that Colombini lost his custody of the boy because he’s an alcoholic, allegations that his attorney vehemently denies. She also claimed that anti-Castroites in Florida had threatened her and her kids after she discovered their plot to arm counterrevolutionaries in Cuba. Blanco insisted that Jonathon “will not become Elian, for the simple reason that I am not dead.” With luck, zealots on both sides of the straits will agree.
