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The former Cuban political prisoner Ana Lazara RodriguezThe 82-year-old struggles not to have to leave the house where she has resided for 26 years in Miami, which is pending foreclosure.
At just 21 years old, Rodríguez was sentenced in Cuba to 30 years in prison for his activities against the regime, and went on to serve 19 years in prison as a political prisoner on the island. He left the country for the United States in 1980.
“It’s sad at my age, you know, after having been through so much, that I still have to keep fighting”he said regretfully, in recent statements to Telemundo 51.
In 1995, Ana Lázara bought the house with a friend and also a former political prisoner, which It is located near Calle 8, in Little Havana.
However, Rodríguez did not know that the debt acquired when buying the house was what is called a “predatory loan”, that is, the payments increase over time, as well as the amount of money owed to the bank .
His lawyer, Bruce Jacobs, explains that with this type of loan, after a few years the payment required was so high that Rodríguez could not assume them.
It is also the case that the mortgage was sold from one bank to another fraudulently, according to the lawyer, who estimates that for that reason there is still hope, although in principle the house is already sold to a California woman .
“The only hope I have is that this is the only country in the world where someone poor like me can beat a bank”said the woman, whose mortgage dispute with the bank dates back to 2009.
Rodríguez has received a support visit from the Commissioner, Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who assures that it is the responsibility of the municipal government, and of all governments, to support the most vulnerable residents.
“I bought it for $ 168,000. Right now what the bank wants is almost $ 800,000 and I’m never going to be able to pay that,” Ana Lázara Rodríguez said in a statement to America Tevé, in which he offered other details of the property purchase process.
On that occasion, Rodríguez explained that she was able to buy the house because a friend, María Antonia Mier, won almost $ 100,000 at the casino.
But, according to her testimony, years later her friend went crazy and gave other uses to the money. When Mier died of cancer in 2008, Rodríguez took over the property and He took on mortgage debts that he could not pay because his salary was not enough to cover expenses.
Although he had been paying the bankruptcy for a few years, the lawyer informed him that he had not applied well, and he stopped paying his debt.
The woman, who for almost two decades in jail in Cuba endured beatings, humiliations and hunger strikes, could not apply for income support because she earned earnings during her working life as a nursing assistant.
The immediate hope of Ana Lázara Rodríguez is concentrated in a hearing that is called for next February 26. If it was proven that there was fraud in the process of selling the house from one bank to another, the old woman could retain hope of staying in the house.
Ana Lázara Rodríguez’s 19 years in prison in Cuba were recounted in a book published in 1995, published in collaboration with journalist Glenn Garvin.
In Diary of a survivor: 19 years in a women’s prison in Cuba (Diary of a Survivor: Nineteen Years in a Cuban Women’s Prison), Rodríguez recounts her traumatic experience since she was imprisoned in the early 1960s.
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