Miami federal judge awards $314 million to three Americans tortured in Venezuela

A federal judge in Miami has awarded more than $314 million in damages to three American citizens who said they were imprisoned and brutally tortured by the Venezuelan regime headed by Nicolás Maduro before they were freed in a 2023 prisoner exchange that secured the release of Maduro ally Alex Saab from U.S custody.

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U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles entered a default judgment Tuesday against Maduro, Saab, five other former Venezuelan officials and the alleged drug-trafficking organization known as the Cartel de los Soles after they failed to respond to the lawsuit. In his ruling, Gayles described the former Maduro government as a “criminal enterprise” responsible for the abuses suffered by the three men.

The plaintiffs — Jerrel Kenemore, Jason Saad and Edgar Marval — sued several senior Venezuelan officials last year, claiming they were subjected to months of physical and psychological torture while in custody, including electric shocks, severe beatings, prolonged isolation, painful stress positions and other forms of abuse that continue to leave them suffering from lasting trauma.

The lawsuit also named current Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodríguez, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, Attorney General Tarek William Saab and the state oil company PDVSA as defendants.

The three Americans were among 10 U.S. citizens released by Venezuela in December 2023 as part of a secret prisoner swap negotiated by the Biden administration. In exchange, Washington released Saab, the Colombian businessman long accused by U.S. prosecutors of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through contracts with the Maduro government. Saab has consistently denied wrongdoing.

According to the lawsuit, the detentions were not isolated arrests but part of a deliberate strategy by Maduro to seize American citizens as bargaining chips after Saab was extradited from Cape Verde to the United States in 2021 to face money-laundering charges.

“When the United States captured and arrested Alex Saab… Maduro responded with even more aggressive anti-American acts of terrorism,” the federasl complaint says, accusing the former Venezuelan leader of using U.S. citizens as hostages to force Saab’s return.

The lawsuit was filed under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, an infrequently used statute that allows American victims of terrorism to seek civil damages from those responsible and, under certain circumstances, pursue the seizure of their assets.

Allegations of systematic torture

The complaint accuses Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency, known by its Spanish initials DGCIM, of carrying out systematic torture under Maduro’s direction.

Kenemore, a computer specialist from Fort Worth, Texas, spent 643 days in Venezuelan custody after being kidnapped near the Colombia-Venezuela border in March 2022 by armed men who later forced him across the frontier and handed him over to Venezuelan authorities.

According to the lawsuit, he was falsely accused of espionage and subjected to repeated beatings, prolonged isolation, food deprivation, contaminated drinking water and a form of psychological abuse commonly known as “white torture.” He was allegedly forced to inhale gasoline and paint fumes and kept in conditions that left him suffering from chronic panic attacks, insomnia, stomach ulcers and permanent nerve damage to his wrists and hands.

Marval, a Florida businessman whose company conducted business in Venezuela, said he endured some of the most severe abuse.

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According to the complaint, DGCIM officers repeatedly beat him, fractured his back, administered electric shocks — including to his genitals — and threatened to kill him while extorting money from his wife. Investigators allegedly planted grenades and ammunition in his home before accusing him of terrorism, while Venezuelan agents forced him to surrender passwords to his U.S. bank accounts and drained his life savings.

His wife also claimed that Venezuelan authorities confiscated family property and repeatedly called demanding money in exchange for sparing his life.

Saad, an Alabama native who had lived and worked in Venezuela for several years, said he was arrested in 2022 by DGCIM agents who surrounded him in a local market shouting “terrorist.”

He spent 557 days in custody without access to a lawyer or a court hearing, according to the lawsuit. During one transfer aboard a military aircraft, he said, agents forced him into a painful stress position that nearly dislocated his shoulder and permanently damaged tendons in his arm. He also was denied medical treatment despite developing infections and other health complications while imprisoned.

The allegations mirror broader accusations of torture by Venezuelan security agencies that are also under investigation by the International Criminal Court.

Delcy Rodríguez excluded

Although Rodríguez was named as a defendant, the judge did not enter judgment against Venezuela’s current interim president.

Her attorneys appeared in federal court in April seeking dismissal of the lawsuit, arguing that Rodríguez is immune from civil litigation because she is the internationally recognized head of state of Venezuela.

The plaintiffs dispute that claim, arguing that the constitutional basis for Rodríguez’s mandate has expired and that sovereign immunity should not shield her from liability.

The judgment leaves open the possibility that litigation against Rodríguez could continue separately.

Whether Kenemore, Saad and Marval ultimately collect the $314 million remains uncertain. Enforcing judgments against foreign officials often depends on locating assets that can legally be seized in the United States or other jurisdictions. Maduro, who was captured by U.S. forces during a raid in Caracas on Jan. 3, is currently in a federal detention facility in New York with his wife awaiting trial.

Still, the ruling represents one of the largest civil awards ever obtained by American citizens alleging torture at the hands of Venezuelan authorities and marks one of the strongest judicial condemnations yet of the conduct of the former Maduro government.

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