MIAMI (AP) — A former U.S. Marine and a Florida man who were imprisoned in Venezuela have sued President Nicolás Maduro, accusing the leftist leader of heading a vast “criminal enterprise” that has co-opted the state and uses American citizens as bargaining chips in negotiations with the U.S.
The complaint filed Monday in Miami federal court by Matthew Heath and Osman Khan is similar to a slew of lawsuits that have resulted in major judgments for Americans imprisoned in Venezuela. All sought damages under a little-used federal law, the Anti-Terrorism Act, that allows American victims of foreign terror groups to seize the assets of their victimizers.
The latest lawsuit alleges that security officials under the command of Maduro subjected the men to a pattern of torture — waterboarding, electrocution, threats of rape with a nightstick, mind-altering medications and the repeated use of a cramped cell nicknamed “El Tigrito” — that is also being looked at by prosecutors from the International Criminal Court.
“The kidnapping, torture and ransoming of American citizens was part of a continuous and systematic scheme to coerce the United States government into policy concessions, the end of an oil embargo, and prisoner swaps,” attorneys for Heath and Khan argue in the 87-page complaint.
Among the other 17 named defendants are Maduro’s defense minister, attorney general and interior minister as well as state-run oil and gold-mining companies.
Heath, a former U.S. Marine corporal from Tennessee and onetime U.S. security consultant in Afghanistan, was arrested in 2020 at a roadblock in Venezuela. Authorities charged him with terrorism after allegedly finding weapons and a satellite phone in his possession. Maduro said he was in the country surveilling oil refineries as a spy for then-President Donald Trump.
Heath's family said he was stuck in Colombia when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down air travel, leaving him stranded. He crossed the border into Venezuela in the hope of taking a short boat ride to Aruba, where a trawler he fixed up to start a chartering business was docked, according to the complaint.
Khan was working in Colombia after graduating from college in Florida when he fell in love with a Venezuelan woman who invited him to meet her family. He was detained in January 2022 while crossing the border with his girlfriend and her father on a motorized canoe as instructed by the woman's brother, a Venezuelan national guardsman. He was later charged with crimes including terrorism and human trafficking.
The U.S. government determined both men were wrongfully detained on false charges. Heath and Khan were released — after being held 752 and 259 days respectively — in October 2022 along with five U.S. oil executives in exchange for two nephews of first lady Cilia Flores jailed in the U.S. on narcotics convictions.
Venezuela's government did not immediately comment on the lawsuit when contacted by The Associated Press but has long denied it targets Americans for imprisonment.
Other Americans who have been imprisoned in Venezuela have won major judgments against Maduro and his inner circle on similar legal grounds.
In 2022, a federal judge in Miami awarded $73 million in damages to the family of a prominent opponent of Maduro who died while in custody after inexplicably falling from the 10th floor of a building belonging to the SEBIN political police. And last year an exiled Venezuelan lawyer won $153 million after he was lured back home because his father had been kidnapped, only to end up imprisoned himself on trumped-up charges of working as a “financial terrorist.”
As in the earlier cases, Heath and Khan in their lawsuit accused Maduro of controlling the “Cartel of the Suns,” a purported drug-smuggling ring involving top Venezuelan officials and guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia allegedly flooding the U.S. with cocaine.
But collecting those large rewards has proven daunting. Neither Maduro nor any of his close aides are known to have properties or bank accounts in the U.S. under their name. Whatever wealth officials have stolen is more likely to be held by a myriad of front men whose assets are hard to trace and seize.
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FILE - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro waits to receive attendees at the start of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) Summit in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jesus Vargas, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A fast-moving wildfire broke out Tuesday in the inland foothills northeast of Los Angeles hours after another blaze tore through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood along the coast, destroying many homes and prompting evacuation orders for tens of thousands.
The Eaton Fire in Altadena started near a nature preserve just before 6:30 p.m. The flames spread so rapidly that staff at a senior care center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot where they waited in their bedclothes for ambulances and other vehicles to take them to safety.
To the west, the Pacific Palisades fire that started Tuesday morning burned out of control into the night.
The Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help fight the flames that were being pushed by winds topping 60 mph (97 kph) in some places and creating chaotic scenes as residents fled.
It was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, hampering the fight.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A wildfire whipped up by extreme winds swept through a Los Angeles hillside dotted with celebrity residences Tuesday, burning homes in Pacific Palisades and prompting evacuation orders for tens of thousands. In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways were clogged and scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.
The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path, according to the LA Fire Department.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers,” and he said he found “not a few — many structures already destroyed.”
Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.
And the worst could be yet to come. The blaze began around 10:30 a.m., shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be “life threatening” and the strongest to hit Southern California in more than a decade. The exact cause of the fire was unknown and no injuries had been reported, officials said.
Only about 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) northeast in Altadena, another fire spread to about 400 acres (about 162 hectares) by Tuesday evening, prompting evacuation orders, the Angeles National Forest posted on the social platform X.
The winds were expected to increase overnight and continue for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.
“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods," Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds are expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday. He declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.
As of Tuesday evening, 28,300 households were without power due to the strong winds, according to the mayor’s office. About 15,000 utility customers in Southern California had their power shut off to reduce the risk of equipment sparking a blaze. A half a million customers total were at risk of losing power preemptively.
The Pacific Palisades fire quickly consumed about 4.6 square miles (11.6 square kilometers) of land in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in western Los Angeles, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents in Venice Beach, some 6 miles (10 kilometers) away, reported seeing the flames. It was one of several blazes across the area.
Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid in evacuation efforts. But other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to get out of danger and waited to be picked up.
The LA Fire Department requested all off-duty members call with their availability for recall Tuesday evening.
Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.
“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming. The road was just blocked, like full-on blocked for an hour.”
An Associated Press video journalist saw a roof and chimney of one home in flames and another residence where the walls were burning. The Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which borders Malibu about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.
An AP photographer saw multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads. Roads were clogged in both directions as evacuees fled down toward the Pacific Coast Highway while others begged for rides back up to their homes to rescue pets. Two of the homes on fire were inside exclusive gated communities.
Long-time Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Meanwhile, he said embers flew into his wife's car as she tried to evacuate.
“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.
Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.
“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.
Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.
“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.
Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in the Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.
“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate. … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”
The erratic weather caused Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.
Biden said in a statement that he and his team are communicating with state and local officials and he has offered “any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire.”
Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burned by late Tuesday, but staff and the museum collection remain safe, Getty President Katherine Fleming said in a statement. The museum located on the eastern end of the Pacific Palisades is a separate campus of the world-famous Getty Museum that focuses on the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The fire also burned Palisades Charter High School classrooms.
Film studios canceled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.
Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May.
Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco, Hallie Golden in Seattle and video journalist Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Smoke from a wildfire is seen from the Venice Beach section of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
A swimmer watches as a large dark plume of smoke passes over the beach from a wildfire from Pacific Palisades, in Santa Monica, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
A surfer takes off on a wave in Santa Monica, Calif., during sunset under a blackened sky from the Palisades fire in the Pacific Palisades on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Surfers Shaun Rosenberg, right, and Teal Greene take to the waves under a blackened sky from a wildfire in the Pacific Palisades, during the sunset in Santa Monica, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
People flee from the advancing Palisades Fire, by car and on foot, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
The Palisades Fire burns a property in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
A firefighter battles the advancing Palisades Fire as it burns a structure in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
A firefighters make a stand in front of the advancing Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Will Adams uses a garden hose to keep flames from damaging his home as the Palisades Fire advances in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Firefighters battle the advancing Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
A person flees from an advancing wildfire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A vehicle burns as the Palisades Fire sweeps through in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
People wait with some belongings while fleeing the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
The Palisades Fire burns trees and homes in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
A person tries to hose down embers from the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
CORRECTS BYLINE FROM ETIENNE LAURENT TO ETHAN SWOPE - The Palisades Fire burns a residence in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A firefighter hoses down flames from the Palisades Fire in front of a residence in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A woman cries as the Palisades Fire advances in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
A firefighter protects a structure from the advancing Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
Will Adams watches as flames from the Palisades Fire close in on his property in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Fire crews battle the Palisades Fire as it burns multiple structures in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire as it burns multiple structures in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Water is dropped by helicopter on the advancing Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
CORRECTS BYLINE FROM ETIENNE LAURENT TO ETHAN SWOPE - The Palisades Fire burns a property in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A firefighter jumps over a fence while fighting the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A residence burns as a firefighter battles the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia)
Firefighters hose down flames as the Palisades Fire destroys a residence in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
Vehicles are left stranded off the side of the road after residents tried to flee from the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
A resident stands in front of a garage as fire crews fight the Palisades Fire nearby in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
The Palisades Fire ravages a neighborhood amid high winds in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
