SerpApi.Org
The Department of Justice has asked a federal judge in Miami to drop Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez from a $314 million torture judgment, arguing in a July 20 suggestion of immunity that she is entitled to head-of-state immunity while in office.
The seven-page filing, signed by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, tells U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles that the United States has an interest in the case because Rodriguez, as Venezuela's sitting head of state, enjoys immunity from the court's jurisdiction while she holds office, according to El Espectador, which reviewed the document.
The submission followed a June 11 letter from then-State Department legal adviser Reed D. Rubinstein recommending immunity on foreign-policy grounds.
On July 14, Gayles entered $314 million in default judgments against former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Colombian businessman Alex Saab, five other former Venezuelan officials, and the Cartel de los Soles under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, but declined to rule on the claims against Rodriguez.
His order stated that nothing in it adjudicates or decides the plaintiffs' claims as to Delcy Eloina Rodriguez Gomez.
The judge's 19-page opinion described the detentions as part of a criminal enterprise, The Associated Press reported.
Plaintiffs Jerrel Kenemore, Jason Saad, and Edgar Marval sued in August 2025, alleging beatings, electric shocks, prolonged isolation and other abuse at the hands of Venezuela's military counterintelligence agency before their December 2023 release in a prisoner swap that returned Saab to Caracas.
Rodriguez, sworn in as acting president Jan. 5 after U.S. special forces captured Maduro two days earlier, had asked in April to be dismissed on head-of-state grounds.
Her brother, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez, filed a similar motion through separate counsel.
The filing is consistent with other Trump administration decisions involving Rodriguez, even as officials have publicly threatened her.
In late May, the AP reported that federal prosecutors in Miami had been told to stand down on criminal investigations into her, a directive tied to broader efforts to stabilize Venezuela after Maduro's ouster.
Gayles must now decide whether to accept the executive branch's determination.
Federal courts have historically deferred to the State Department's suggestions of immunity for sitting foreign leaders, a doctrine rooted in the Constitution's assignment of foreign relations to the president.
If the judge agrees, Rodriguez will be dismissed; if he allows the claims to proceed, the plaintiffs will still face steep barriers to collecting from a sitting foreign official.
Neither the Venezuelan government nor the plaintiffs' attorneys had commented as of publication, El Espectador reported.
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