ATLANTA (CN) — A fugitive Venezuelan billionaire with reported cartel ties must pay towards a $318 million judgment after defying court orders to appear at a Zoom deposition for a decadelong legal battle waged by victims of a Colombian terrorist kidnapping, a unanimous 11th Circuit panel ruled on Wednesday.
The three-judge panel upheld Florida federal judge U.S. District Judge Robert Scola’s 2022 determination that Samark Jose Lopez Bello and nine companies associated with him are “agencies or instrumentalities” of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC.
Writing on behalf of the panel, U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan found Lopez Bello “willfully disobeyed” the order to appear at the scheduled deposition on Zoom and that his companies “willfully failed to comply with their discovery obligations.”
The panel rejected Lopez Bello’s arguments that Scola’s entry of default judgment was an extreme and harsh sanction which the lower court lacked jurisdiction to enter.
“What makes this case unique is that Mr. Lopez was a fugitive. And because of his fugitive status, the district court lacked the practical ability to compel him to obey its orders,” Jordan, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote. “Mr. Lopez … was allowed to appear virtually for his deposition. Yet he still disobeyed the district court’s order and failed to appear.”
The panel also ruled that the lower court was correct in rejecting Lopez’s motions for protective orders, finding that Lopez Bello “failed to establish good cause” for the motions or for postposing the deposition by two days.
U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher, an appointee of Donald Trump, and U.S. Circuit Judge Nancy Abudu, a Joe Biden appointee, joined Jordan in the opinion. The panel heard arguments in the case in January.
An attorney for Lopez Bello did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Lopez Bello, whose capture for narcotics trafficking comes with a $5 million reward from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been indirectly connected to the paramilitary group through his association with narcotics kingpin Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah, Venezuela’s Minister of Industries.
Scola had initially ruled in favor of the seven plaintiffs in the case as a method of sanctioning Lopez Bello for his failure to appear at the Zoom deposition.
Scola’s decision allowed the surviving victims of the 2003 kidnapping to garnish blocked assets belonging to Lopez Bello and the companies to satisfy a $318 million judgment against the FARC. The victims sued the group in 2013.
The decision is the sixth handed down by the Atlanta-based appeals court in connection with the matter.
A panel of the appeals court previously ruled Lopez Bello and his companies were entitled to a jury trial on whether they were agents of the FARC such that their bank accounts and property could be garnished to satisfy the Anti-Terrorism Act judgment.
The case was sent back to the lower court by the previous panel for a trial. But the proceedings stalled before a trial ever occurred once Lopez Bello disobeyed orders to appear at the October 2022 deposition.
Scola repeatedly warned Lopez Bello and his companies that the failure to respond to discovery requests would result in sanctions. Still, Lopez Bello failed to provide the plaintiffs with any documents.
The panel also said Wednesday Lopez Bello and his companies “tried to obstruct and delay” the very trial they demanded and “demonstrated through their conduct that a less drastic sanction would not ensure compliance.”
While attorneys for Lopez Bello have characterized him as an innocent businessman, the U.S. Treasury Department and Justice Department have pegged him as the frontman for El Aissami.
Lopez Bello is said by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls to have laundered money for El Aissami which was derived from the sale of cocaine manufactured by the FARC.
Both Lopez Bello and El Aissami were indicted in 2019 in the Southern District of New York for violating U.S. sanctions targeting former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Moros.
A D.C. Circuit panel in March rejected a request by Lopez Bello to reverse his designation as a drug trafficker.