Could A Us-cuba Prisoner Swap Break Ice? | National News - Wgal Home

In addition, recent editorials in The New York Times have recommended an end to the longstanding U.S. embargo against Cuba and even a prisoner swap for Gross. Who is Alan Gross? Gross is serving a 15-year sentence for bringing satellite communications equipment to Cuba as part of his work as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. U.S. officials said Gross, who is Jewish, was trying to help Cuba's small Jewish community bypass stringent restrictions on Internet access. Cuban authorities, however, countered that he was part of a plot to create a "Cuban Spring" and destabilize the island's single-party Communist system in a clandestine effort to expand Internet access. Gross had traveled to Cuba multiple times as a tourist.