FBI Charges 2 Boaters Rescued Off Cuba

Two men found floating in a life raft in the Florida Straits will appear in a Miami court today.

One of the men is a fugitive accused of stealing more than $92,000 from a Wal-Mart in Arkansas where he worked as an assistant manager.

Authorities say the men paid a crew of a Miami Beach charter boat $4,000 to take them to the Bahamas. But the trip turned south, and the charter boat was found adrift in a remote area of the Bahamas Sunday with no one on board.

The discovery of the fishing yacht Bahamas prompted a search that led to the rescue of a fugitive and his associate. The charter boat's four crew members were missing.

The Coast Guard pulled the two men from a life raft Monday about 12 miles from the abandoned yacht Joe Cool. The FBI identified them as Kirby Logan Archer, 35, an Arkansas resident wanted in a robbery case, and Guillermo Zarabozo, 19, of the Miami area.

Archer was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, and Zarabozo was charged with making a false statement to a federal agent, said FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela. Both were being held in the federal detention center in Miami awaiting a Wednesday court appearance.

Archer and Zarabozo paid the Joe Cool crew $4,000 to drop them off in Bimini, Bahamas, where they said girls were waiting for them, authorities said.

They were headed toward Bimini late Saturday, then halfway through the trip the 47-foot yacht turned south, said Coast Guard Petty Officer James Judge.

"That leads us to believe that something happened at that time," he said.

The boat was found Sunday afternoon adrift near the Cay Sal Bank, about 30 miles north of Cuba.

A search continued Tuesday from just north of Cuba to the Bahamas and South Florida for the captain, Jake Branam, 27; his wife Kelley Branam; his half brother, Scott Campbell, 30; and Samuel Kairy, 27, all of Miami Beach.

Jeff Branam, Jake Branam's uncle, told The Miami Herald the boat crew might have been forced overboard or worse.

"Now, the best-case scenario is if they gave my nephew and the others onboard life jackets and told them to swim for it," he said.

Jake and Kelly Branam have two young children.

Archer is accused of stealing $92,620 in cash from a Wal-Mart in Batesville, Ark., where he had worked as an assistant manager. The cash was found missing shortly after Archer left work on Jan. 26, according to police.

Independence County, Ark., Sheriff Keith Bowers said the assistant manager was brazen in getting the money out of the store, putting it in an empty microwave box.

"He put the money in the box and went to the front acting like he was paying for a microwave and even used his employee discount," Bowers said.