José Miguel Battle Sr.

Early life in Cuba

Battle was born on September 14, 1929, in Alto Songo, Cuba, to Jose Maria Battle Bestard and Angela Vargas Yzaguirre. He had five brothers: Gustavo, Pedro, Sergio, Hiram and Aldo.

Educated in Santiago de Cuba, he began his career as a policeman there in 1949 and was transferred to Havana in the early 1950s. As a vice cop handling illegal gambling, alcohol, drugs and racketeering, he acted as a go-between for the Mafia, delivering cash bribes from Meyer Lansky's enterprises to President Fulgencio Batista. He knew Martin Fox, owner of the Tropicana Club, and was introduced to Santo Trafficante Jr. Battle became a Freemason in Cuba and emigrated to the United States in December 1959.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Battle assisted the Central Intelligence Agency in training Cuban exiles and commanded one of the landing craft during the Bay of Pigs Invasion at Playa Girón in April 1961, also serving as a soldier in the ground assault. The invasion failed after President John F. Kennedy aborted American air support. Battle was captured after three days of battle and imprisoned for nearly two years in a Cuban prison. He later contributed financially to the anti-Castro paramilitary organization Alpha 66 and the efforts of Luis Posada Carriles.

Career

As compensation for his Bay of Pigs service, Battle received an officer's commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army but left after a year. He settled in Union City, New Jersey, and began leading a family of Cuban-American criminals involved in loansharking, gambling, drug trafficking and murder.

He established working relationships with the Italian Mafia in New York but also had violent turf wars. He became wealthy from the illegal lottery bolita, earning up to $45 million a year in the 1970s in New Jersey, New York, and Florida. By the 1980s he invested heavily in legitimate businesses in New York, with the Torres brothers operating bolita for him in Spanish Harlem, Harlem and the South Bronx.

Arrest, conviction and death

In 2004 Battle Sr., his son Jr., and 21 others were indicted on charges including five murders, four arson attacks resulting in eight deaths, and over $1.5 billion collected from drug trafficking, bookmaking, and numbers rackets. Battle Sr. was housed in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Miami on racketeering charges. On May 6, 2006, he pleaded guilty to racketeering due to his health, and on January 15, 2007, was sentenced to 20 years. He died on August 4, 2007, from various ailments in a South Carolina medical facility while in federal custody, aged 77.