A Florida federal judge has dismissed racketeering and other claims against a director of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company and others after determining that the suit accusing them of engaging in a defamatory campaign to smear civic leaders is a shotgun pleading.
In an order filed Friday, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom tossed a lawsuit filed by Ivan Freites, Miguel Enrique Otero and Jorge Alejandro Rodriguez accusing Horacio Medina, who is the president of the ad hoc board of directors of Petróleos de Venezuela SA that controls the company’s U.S. assets, and others, including a former Venezuelan ambassador, a professor and a film director, of orchestrating a campaign to defame them as a result of their lawsuit in Delaware.
Horacio Medina is represented by Gabor Gazso von Klingspor, Javier Coronado Diaz, Marta Colomar Garcia and Michael Diaz Jr. of Diaz Reus & Targ LLP.
