Biography
William Potts was a Black Panther Party member who in 1984 boarded a Miami bound plane and handed the flight attendant a note falsely claiming he had a bomb on board and would detain it unless the plane landed in Cuba. Potts had hoped to travel to the island nation to serve as an Ambassador to the nation for the Black Panthers and had no other way to enter the country due to the U.S blockade. Rather than be welcomed as a hero, Potts was arrested and sentenced to 15-years hard labor as part of a 1971 agreement Cuba made with the United States to prosecute hijackers. After serving his sentence he returned to the United States in 2013 to reunite with his family. Potts was immediately taken in custody and charged with committing the decades old hijacking. Potts was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
