A Florida court ruled on Aug. 19 in favor of Villoldo. The Cuban regime was charged with economic damages, pain and suffering for both Villoldo and his brother, plus damages for the torture of Villoldo.
The court heard that beginning in 1959, the Cuban regime committed multiple acts of terrorism against the Villoldo family because of the family’s financial wealth and U.S. citizenship.
“The soldiers gave Villoldo’s father a choice of committing suicide and losing all monetary assets, or seeing his family executed and then being executed,” said Andrew C. Hall, Villoldo’s lawyer, via phone.
Choosing to save his family and forfeit his possessions, Villoldo’s father’s body was found dead in his home a month after the tortures began.
Villoldo’s father had owned the first General Motors dealership in Cuba, which was named after him. He also owned an office building, an assembly plant, a parts and maintenance shop, and a company that financed car loans. He had a gas station, a showroom, a parking lot, a 33,000-acre ranch, a 10-story apartment building, and many real estate holdings, including an oceanfront family estate and two beach homes.
All of these properties were usurped by the regime after the father’s death, but the acts of terrorism continued until 2003.
At the same time that Villoldo’s father was being threatened, Villoldo himself was imprisoned along with 140 prisoners. He was detained for five days, while authorities threatened and beat him in an attempt to obtain a forced confession that Villoldo was an American agent. He was one of the few who were not executed.
The court ruled that such acts are properly classified as torture. Because the Cuban regime never testifies in such cases, a ruling in Villoldo’s favor was almost inevitable.
Terror Has Consequences
Villoldo’s lawyer said that the size of the settlement is important because of what it causes the Cuban regime to lose.
“The message is irrelevant unless the amount of money is terribly painful,” said Hall, “The message is important because it’s essential to deliver the message in the world that terrorism has consequences.”
Although the case has been settled, the problem remains as to how to retrieve the money. The U.S. government’s pool of frozen Cuban assets is shrinking, says Hall, as plaintiffs come in to collect settlements from the regime.
Instead of settling for part of the $200 million left in frozen assets, Hall says he will try two other ways to get Villoldo the money.
He will target the Cuban regime’s enterprises that do business abroad and, as a third option, he will focus on collecting from a post-communist Cuban government.
“I will do everything to make sure that the Villoldo family does receive justice,” Hall says.
Andrew Hall has a perfect record when it comes to collecting money from authoritarian governments for terrorism damages—he has collected on all the eight cases taken against the likes of Iraq, Libya, and Sudan.
Hall says that he can relate to victims of terrorism like the Villoldo family because he and his family are survivors of the Holocaust who escaped from Poland in 1948.
“Being born as a Jew in the middle of the Nazi regime, losing everything, losing most of my family, I understand very well how the Villoldo family feels.”
Villoldo was also responsible for burying Che Guevara after the Marxist was caught and executed in 1967. Villoldo auctioned off a lock of Guevara’s hair in 2007 which sold for $100,000, the lowest bid.
