Michigan couple face thousands in fines for trip to Cuba [View All]

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Michael and Angela McCarthy crossed the border from Ontario into Michigan in April 2001, an officer asked them where they'd been. The couple answered truthfully — Cuba — and mentioned they had brought back a couple of cigars.

Three years and thousands of dollars in legal fees later, the Port Huron, Mich., couple is driving to Washington this week to find out how much the U.S. government will fine them for their illegal trip. Administrative Law Judge Irwin Schroeder could make them pay up to $110,000 after considering their case during a hearing Monday.

The McCarthy case is one of about 20 now before judges of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control, according to the Center for International Policy, which advocates ending travel restrictions to Cuba. Many more cases get settled before they ever reach a judge.

OFAC has opened more than 10,000 enforcement investigations in the last decade for possible violations of the 40-year-old economic embargo against Fidel Castro's regime. The agency has collected more than $8 million in fines since 1994.

The McCarthys, an earnest and soft-spoken pair, are devout Catholics who considered their trip a missionary effort as well as a vacation. They brought medicine, as they had done on similar trips to Mexico and Haiti, and stayed with nuns in Havana. On a road trip across the island, they picked up more than 30 hitchhikers so they could learn about the country.