--- alias: - Alvin Ross Díaz - Alvin Ross Diaz category: Extremism & Violent Networks created: 2026-09-21 location: Union City, New Jersey summary: Former Tropicana blackjack dealer and Cuban Nationalist Movement member convicted of the Letelier murders in 1979 on a jailhouse informant's testimony, freed on appeal after United States v. Henry, and acquitted at retrial in 1981. tags: - Person - AlvinRoss - CubanNationalistMovement - CORU - OrlandoLetelier - CubanExiles updated: 2026-09-21 --- Alvin Ross Díaz had been a blackjack dealer at the Tropicana in Havana before the revolution. [Guillermo Novo](/people/guillermo-novo/) introduced him to [Michael Townley](/people/michael-townley/) in September 1976 as "a comrade." He was at the meeting in a [New Jersey](/places/new-jersey/) hotel room on the night of September 10 with Novo, [Virgilio Paz](/people/virgilio-paz/), and [José Dionisio Suárez](/people/jose-dionisio-suarez/) where Townley asked the [Cuban Nationalist Movement](/organizations/cuban-nationalist-movement/) to help kill [Orlando Letelier](/people/orlando-letelier/).[^1][^2] ### Trial An FBI informant reported in January 1978 that "a young action oriented cell under the control of Francisco 'Frank' Castro of the [CORU](/organizations/coru/) organization," made up of Ross and Raciel Rodríguez, had bombed the Viasa Airlines office in Miami Beach on December 23, 1977. Indicted for the Letelier murders on August 1, 1978, Ross was tried with the Novo brothers from January 8, 1979. [Sherman Kaminsky](/people/sherman-kaminsky/), a racketeer awaiting sentence who had met him in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, testified that Ross said "he was involved in the murder of Orlando Letelier together with generals in [DINA](/organizations/dina/)," called Townley "a traitor, a rat, an informer," called Letelier "a rotten Communist Marxist," said he was "glad Letelier was dead," admitted "he had contributed two wires used in the bomb," and said "he would not pay for Letelier's murder because the CIA would be the scapegoat, people would believe anything of the CIA." The sentencing judge had told Kaminsky: "I am going to suspend the operation of that sentence depending on how you come through." Kaminsky's notes, given to his lawyer in August 1978 with a request that the CIA be told, recorded Ross saying "that a person blown up in Washington was a double agent of the CIA" and that he planned to blow up Russian ships in American harbors. Ross was convicted on February 14, 1979, and sentenced on March 23 to concurrent life terms on four counts and a consecutive life term for the murder of Moffitt; one of the four was vacated on March 27.[^2][^3] On September 15, 1980, the court of appeals reversed: after *United States v. Henry*, decided that June, testimony so obtained was inadmissible. At the retrial in May 1981 Townley, asked what Ross had done to carry out the assassination, answered: "There is nothing I can think of." The jury acquitted Ross and Novo of the murders.[^2][^4] ### Bail His motion for bail after the reversal, filed from the penitentiary at Marion when he had "been incarcerated for over two years," said that before his arrest he had been questioned repeatedly by FBI agents in New Jersey about Letelier, subpoenaed to the grand jury, and had "made no attempt to flee or leave the country." He was born in [Cuba](/places/cuba/), had lived in the [United States](/places/united-states/) for more than twenty years, eight of them at 541 36th Street in Union City and eight before that in Hackensack, was divorced with two children, and had sold cars for ten years at Carter Ford and Ascione Motors in North Bergen, after work as a draftsman in Moonachie. "Although he has been arrested on other criminal charges, the defendant has no criminal record." Judge Barrington Parker refused to reassign the case on December 23, 1980, asked for appraisals of the New Jersey property offered as collateral, and had not ruled five weeks after receiving them when the defense went to the court of appeals.[^5] [^1]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, p. 14. [^2]: *United States v. Sampol,* 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980). [^3]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, file 2-471, "CORU," August 16, 1978. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 153, document 13.; "USA v. Guillermo Novo Sampol et al., 78-CR-367," case synopsis, latinamericanstudies.org, not verified against the docket. [^4]: "Michael Moffitt, who survived a car bomb that killed his wife," United Press International, May 13, 1981; "New Tactics Led to Acquittal in Letelier Case," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680028-2 [^5]: Motion for bail and for reassignment, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir., 1981), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-bail.pdf; Motion for bail, defendant Alvin Ross Diaz, Crim. No. 78-367 (D.D.C., 1980), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-alvin-bail.pdf; Petition of the United States for Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc, *United States v. Sampol,* Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir., October 29, 1980), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-rehearing.pdf, footnote 3; Orders of transfer, *United States v. Contreras Sepulveda et al.,* Crim. No. 78-367 (D.D.C., August 1978 and 1980), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-transfer-2.pdf and Letelier-transfer.pdf.