Alan Gross was denied appeal over a negligence lawsuit he filed against the US. Photo: Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal filed by Alan Gross, the Jewish American government contractor who was imprisoned in Cuba for 5 years, over a negligence lawsuit Gross filed against the US.

Gross, 65, was imprisoned in Cuba from December 2009 after he was sentenced to a 15-year term for bringing communications devices to the country’s Jewish community. At the time of his arrest, Gross was working for a US firm called Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) to promote democracy, but Cuba convicted him of “crimes against the state.”

Gross, who was released in December 2014 as part of a renewal of relations between the US and Cuba, had sued the US government with his wife for negligence back in 2012, arguing that it sent him to Cuba without the right supervision and training.

Gross’s lawsuit was, however, thrown out by a district court judge, and the decision was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in November 2014 on the grounds that that the US government cannot be sued over acts that took place in another country.

Meanwhile, Gross is expected to receive $3.2 million in compensation from settlement with the US Agency for International Development and DAI, The Jerusalem Post reported.