Houston-area brothers sue Citgo for $400 million over Venezuela imprisonment – ​​Houston Public Media

Two of six former Citgo executives who spent nearly five years in prison by the Venezuelan government have filed a lawsuit seeking more than $400 million from the Houston-based oil company, alleging it was complicit in their unjustified detention and failed to protect them from harm. and inflicted emotional distress on them and their families.

Alirio brothers Jose Zambrano and Jose Luis Zambrano, who both live in the west Houston suburb of Katy, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Harris County with their adult daughters. They are suing Citgo and two related entities, all subsidiaries of PDVSA, an oil company owned by the Venezuelan government.

The Zambrano brothers, along with fellow U.S.-based Citgo executives Gustavo Cardenas, Jorge Toledo, Jose Pereira and Tomeu Vadell, are native Venezuelans who were summoned to a company meeting in Caracas in November 2017 , then arrested by the regime of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. . The men, known as the “Citgo 6,” were accused of trying to refinance corporate debt without authorization, convicted of crimes by a Venezuelan judge and sentenced to lengthy prison terms before being released. finally released. Five of them were released in October 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange between Venezuela and the United States, where they all either have dual nationality or permanent legal residents.

“For years, our clients have been detained in dire conditions, away from their families and loved ones, undergoing immense torture and physical and emotional suffering,” said Randy Sorrels, one of the Zambranos’ attorneys based in Houston. “This lawsuit seeks to hold these companies accountable for their reckless, callous and negligent actions, and to obtain compensation for the enormous harm suffered by the Zambrano brothers and their families.”

Alexandra Forseth

Citgo did not immediately comment on the lawsuit Thursday.

Vadell, of Lake Charles, Louisiana, filed a similar lawsuit against Citgo in March 2023, seeking more than $100 million in damages. This lawsuit remains ongoing in Harris County.

Shortly after filing that suit, Citgo said it sympathized with Vadell and his family, but also said the suit “irresponsibly equates Citgo, an American company based in Houston, with an authoritarian regime in Venezuela “. The company moved to dismiss Vadell’s lawsuit, according to court records.

The Zambranos’ lawsuit claims other Citgo officials were involved in arranging their mandatory trip to Venezuela in 2017 and knew the men’s safety and well-being would be at risk. The suit accuses the company of negligence, gross negligence, conspiracy, aiding and abetting, wrongful detention, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, fraud by nondisclosure and loss of consortium.

In addition to financial damages, the Zambrano brothers are also seeking increased corporate liability and protections for people ordered to travel abroad, according to their lawyers.

“The most damning piece of evidence is the fact that the Citgo vice president actually responsible for financing decisions was never arrested or released,” said Eric Gerard, one of their other lawyers. “Never in my years as a prosecutor or plaintiffs’ attorney have I seen a more egregious example of a large corporation abdicating its duty to the people it was supposed to protect. These honorable, hardworking men were trapped, detained and tortured repeatedly – ​​and Citgo knew they were innocent all along.”