MIAMI — A U.S. veteran who plotted to overthrow Venezuela’s president is proudly standing with a former Venezuelan military common who pleaded responsible in New York on terrorism costs, describing his would-be comrade-in-arms as a patriot and devoted household man worthy of a diminished jail sentence.
Former Inexperienced Beret Jordan Goudreau had stayed largely silent since a ragtag cadre of Venezuelan navy deserters he helped clandestinely prepare in Colombia carried out a cross-border raid in 2020 searching for to oust President Nicolás Maduro. Dubbed Operation Gideon, the raid by no means stood an opportunity and two of Goudreau’s fellow Inexperienced Beret veterans had been shortly arrested, whereas eight Venezuelans had been killed.
Goudreau, 47, resurfaced this week to face with Cliver Alcalá, the rebellious Venezuelan navy officer who could be his most trusted aide within the harebrained scheme. The retired Venezuelan military common is ready to be sentenced Jan. 18 on two counts of offering help for a Colombian insurgent military designated terrorist group by the U.S. He faces a most penalty of 30 years in jail.
Goudreau, in a letter filed Monday in Manhattan federal court docket, recounted how he got here to admire his fellow soldier, dwelling with Alcalá and his household in a spartan condo in northern Colombia. Whereas he makes no point out of their covert coup plans, he described how the 2 would pool funds to purchase rice and different meals staples for these in want, tracing Alcalá’s sense of service to the instance set by his grandmother, who raised him after he misplaced his mother and father, and 20 years as a navy officer in a few of the most distant corners of Venezuela.
“Most troopers really feel the have to be of service, and I do know that Cliver at all times sought to help these in want,” Goudreau wrote within the one-page letter to Choose Alvin Hellerstein urging a diminished sentence. “He had been devoted to offering no matter little further he needed to give to others.”
Goudreau’s public attraction for leniency stems from his involvement within the weird plot highlighted in a 2020 investigation by The Related Press which blew the lid on jungle camps the place Alcalá, going by the nom de guerre Julius Cesar, was coaching a number of dozen determined Venezuelan navy deserters to oust Maduro.
The AP by no means discovered any proof of direct U.S. authorities involvement regardless of Goudreau’s fixed knocking on doorways of the Trump White Home and inking of offers with Maduro’s opponents to muster help for what got here to be often called the Bay of Piglets, in reference to the much better deliberate however equally botched 1961 invasion of Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
Alcalá’s crimes pre-date his battle for Venezuela’s democracy.
He was arrested in March 2020 as a part of a sprawling federal indictment charging him alongside Maduro — who he was by then plotting in opposition to — and others in a sprawling conspiracy stretching again 20 years to transform Venezuela right into a launchpad for flooding the U.S. with cocaine. Earlier, in 2011, he was sanctioned by the U.S. for allegedly supplying the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia with surface-to-air missiles and safety when he commanded troops alongside the shared 1,400-mile border separating the 2 nations.
As a part of plea negotiations, prosecutors dropped the fees of drug trafficking, which Alcalá strenuously denied. As an alternative he pleaded responsible to offering weapons and materials help to a chosen terrorist group, a nonetheless critical however lesser cost that his attorneys argued was the end result of his loyalty to his one-time mentor and boss, the late Hugo Chávez.
“Basic Alcalá by no means raised any arms straight in opposition to america or acted in any means in opposition to the beliefs or residents of this nation,” his lawyer, César de Castro, wrote in a sentencing memo filed late Monday. “The conduct underlying his responsible plea, whereas prison in america, had been the actions of a common following the direct orders of his superior officers and the President of Venezuela.”
Prosecutors have but to advocate a sentence. However Alcalá’s protection staff mentioned that the 62-year-old Venezuelan deserves not more than six years behind bars as a result of his age, harsh imprisonment in the course of the COVID pandemic and his minor function within the offense. Additionally they argue it’s unsafe for him to return residence to Venezuela, the place he faces threats for betraying Maduro.
Then there’s Alcalá’s function as an outspoken foe of Maduro on the identical time the Trump administration had provided a $15 million reward for his arrest and was encouraging Venezuelans to stand up in opposition to the socialist chief who it blamed for destroying the nation’s democracy and its oil wealthy economic system.
In line with De Castro, Alcalá opposed Maduro nearly from the second he assumed the mantle of the Bolivarian revolution from Chávez, who died of most cancers in 2013, the identical yr Alcalá retired from the navy. His dissent escalated and in 2017, with the data of the U.S. authorities, he leveraged his affect among the many Venezuelan officer corps to rally troops to take away Maduro, based on De Castro.
“These weren’t theoretical debates about democratic change, these had been plans for armed riot in opposition to a regime and its management,” De Castro wrote.
The 2017 barracks revolt failed, ending with a number of plotters arrested. Alcalá managed to flee throughout the border to Colombia. Just a few years later, he would attempt once more, this time in coordination with the democratic opposition led by Juan Guaidó, who the U.S. in 2019 acknowledged as Venezuela’s professional chief.
Goudreau, a three-time Bronze Star recipient for bravery in Iraq and Afghanistan, noticed in Alcalá a like-minded warrior, one motivated by patriotism, not political payoffs. When the 2 met, he was dwelling in a small rented condo, driving a beat-up Nissan and had barely $3,000 in a checking account.
“He was not dwelling the lifetime of an exiled corrupt Latin American chief wealthy with the spoils of monies corruptly earned,” De Castro wrote.
Alcalá’s arrest doomed no matter dim hopes the key riot had of succeeding. Nonetheless, lower than 5 weeks after he surrendered to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and two days after the AP uncovered the key plans, a small amphibious drive on ramshackle fishing boats invaded and was shortly mopped up. Eight Venezuelan rebels had been killed and several other others, together with Alcala’s personal nephew, had been arrested.
Additionally captured was Luke Denman and Airan Berry, former U.S. particular forces colleagues of Goudreau, who watched the fiasco unfold from Florida. The 2 People returned residence final month as a part of a prisoner swap wherein the Biden administration launched an in depth ally of Maduro accused within the U.S. of cash laundering.
Within the aftermath of the raid, FBI brokers searched Goudreau’s residence and seized $50,000 as a part of a federal investigation into arms trafficking. However the money was later returned and there isn’t any indication prison costs are forthcoming.
Goudreau was interviewed final month underneath oath by an lawyer for J.J. Rendon, a Miami-based political strategist who initially recruited him for a navy operation to arrest Maduro whereas serving as a prime adviser to Guaidó.
Goudreau sued Rendon in 2020 for breach of contract, though Rendon has mentioned the exploratory contract he signed on behalf of the U.S.-recognized Guaidó authorities was null and void and the roughly $50,000 he paid Goudreau was for bills he incurred earlier than a bitter break up nearly 5 months earlier than the raid.
Gustavo García Montes, an lawyer for Goudreau within the lawsuit, declined to remark.
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