The White House is not commenting on whether President Barack Obama will bring up convicted cop-killer JoAnne Chesimard or 70 other fugitives from justice while he meets with Raul Castro and other Cuban leaders this week.
"The United States [has] continued to see, the return from Cuba of fugitives from U.S. justice and has repeatedly raised those cases with the Cuban government," an unnamed White House source told
NBC News.
Chesimard has been in Cuba since 1984, after her dramatic escape from a New Jersey prison in 1979, where she was sentenced following the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973.
The FBI and New Jersey State Police have a $2 million reward out for Chesimard, and police Superintendent Rick Fuentes said his agency takes the murder and her escape personally.
"She flew from justice and that reopened a wound that was created by the original homicide," he told NBC. "We can't and we won't create the impression that once you flee the country that we're going to stop looking for you."
Chesimard is not the only fugitive that Cuba has welcomed over the years since Fidel Castro took office, but she's one of the more notorious.
Some others include Willie Morales, who lost his hands building bombs for a Puerto Rican group, and Victor Manuel Gerena, for his part in a $7 million armored car heist.
Born as JoAnne Byron in 1947, Chesimard eventually became a Black Panther, and after leaving that group changed her name to Assata Shakur and joined up with the Black Liberation Army.
In addition to a record of bank robberies and kidnappings, she was suspected of being linked to the murders of several New York City Police officers, reports NBC.
The Cuban Embassy in Washington and Chesimard's long-time attorney Lennox Hinds, did not respond to requests for comment. Authorities believe she is almost 69-years-old now and still living in Cuba.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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