John V. Martino (Atlantic City, 3 August 1911 â Miami Beach, 3 August 1975) was an American casino security systems technician who spent 40 months in jail in Havana and published the book I Was Castro's Prisoner (1963), ghostwritten by Nathaniel Weyl.
Martino installed the gambling machines in the casino at Santo Trafficante Jr.'s Hotel Deauville, which were rigged to favor the mob. He was arrested in 1959 on charges of smuggling Cuban citizens after he had attempted to smuggle out of Cuba the family of the former Batista official Esteban Ventura Novo. He received a 13-year sentence. His 16-year-old son was also held at the same time but released after four days. Martino was imprisoned at Isle of Pines, El Principe, and La Cabaña prisons along with thousands of Cuban dissidents and many Americans. According to Martino his "principal mission" in travelling to Cuba was to "liberate gambling cash left behind by Trafficante". At La Cabaña he shared a cell with the former Minister of Agriculture Humberto SoràMarin, later to be executed. His release and return to Miami in October 1962 gained him some status among anti-Castro exiles.
In 1963 he was involved in organizing Cuban exile boat raids along the coast of Cuba. These schemes were organized by Eddie Bayo and William Pawley. In October of that year he delivered a lecture organized by Freedom Forum on his experiences while imprisoned in Cuba.
In 1994 Martino's wife Flo claimed to journalist Anthony Summers that Martino had advance knowledge of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. She said that Martino had told her "Flo, theyâÂÂre going to kill him. TheyâÂÂre going to kill him when he gets to Texas" and that he had received non-stop calls from Texas.