Liberation Army (INLA). Norton also purchased a camping van and had a hidden compartment made. The van was shipped aboard a Panamanian ship inside a container, from Los Angeles to the port at Rotterdam. The van, still inside the container, was then put on a truck and hauled from Rotterdam, through Belgium, to the port of Le Havre, France. Authorities were watching the van, which had two submachine guns, 12 rifles, 23 revolvers and 2,200 rounds of ammunition in the hidden compartment. Norton and his wife, Eleanor, were arrested on June 11, 1986, trying to retrieve the vehicle and were both convicted. Also arrested with them were two INLA members, James MacLaughin and Sean Hughes, and also Hughes' girlfriend Susan May. Susan May's two children, who were with her, were taken to a children's home. Prison In August 1987, William Norton, Hughes and MacLaughin were each sentenced to four years in prison, while Eleanor Norton was sentenced to three years with two of those suspended. Additionally, the group was forbidden to return to France for five years, and they were fined a total of US$81,700. Susan May was not convicted. Norton was released after 19 months while his wife served five months before her release on medical grounds. The couple were subject to a U.S. warrant on the gun smuggling charges and were granted asylum in Nicaragua. Central America and Cuba After bandits broke into his house in Managua, he was able to find a gun and shot and killed one of the robbers. He relocated to Cuba in the 1990s, but rapidly became disenchanted with life under Communism. He moved, this time to Mexico, and sought the help of his daughter and his first wife to bring him back into the United States. He met his family members in Tijuana, and they smuggled him back across the U.S. border. He settled in Santa Barbara, California, where he reportedly spent years worrying that the FBI would arrest him until a lawyer convinced him that he had nothing to worry about. He wrote a script, Exiled in America, based on his experiences, which was produced by Paul Leder. Death Norton died in Santa Barbara of a heart attack, aged 85, on October 1, 2010. He was survived by his second wife, Eleanor, as well as by two daughters and a son, writer-director Bill L. Norton. His first marriage, to the former