by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 18 – Venezuelan government owned oil company sued insurers to be paid for a million barrels of crude they say were taken off the M/T Gerd Knutsen on February 9, 2020 by Guaido forces.
But in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the name of a witness - one of four captains - is being kept under seal, and the courtroom will apparently be sealed when his videotaped deposition is shown to the jurors.
Inner City Press was in the courtroom on December 12 when Judge Gregory H. Woods said that if the sealed witness was further identified in opening arguments, he would revisit his sealing order.
On December 13 CITGO's Karl Schmidt was on the witness stand, testifying how bringing a new crew to the Gerd to replace what he called the largely Filipino crew was mulled, as those on board considered abandoning ship if their bunker fuel ran out.
On December 14 CITGO's corporate treasurer was on the stand, with a Southern accent, estimate the costs and damages to CITGO including paying lawyers $96,000 in connection with getting an OFAC license to deal with PDVSA. She cited a Delaware case in which she said Maduro's PDVSA tried to masquerade as CITGO's board...
On December 18, the jury found largely for CITGO, to the tune it seemed of $50 million. CITGO was represented by former EDNY Rich Donoghue, of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. We aim to have more on this.
This takes place in SDNY where the criminal trial of Carlos Orense, which included testimony alleging CITGO was used to launder money from the US back to Venezuela, ended with guilty verdicts on all three counts.
This civil case is Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Ascot Underwriting Limited, for and on behalf of Lloyd's Syndicate 1414 et al, 21-cv-389, (Woods)
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