Bank accounts for up to $3 million. Prada and Ferragamo shopping for over $600,000. And $40,000 payment to a beauty contest organizer. That’s the life of Maikel Moreno, the chief justice from Maduro’s regime which controls the Supreme Court. A man who admitted to earning only $12,000 a year.
Last week, South Florida Attorney General Ariana Fajardo presented the results of an investigation launched in late 2017 against Chief Justice Maikel Moreno, which shows a life of luxury in Miami, with millionaire accounts with more than $3,000,000.
Moreno payment a million dollars for the renting of a complete private plane with its pilot, and also made the payment of approximately $40,000 to the director of a beauty contest in Venezuela.
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Since 2015, Maikel Moreno is married to Italian-Venezuelan model Debora Menicucci. The wedding was in the Dominican Republic. The couple met when the young woman participated in the Miss Venezuela contest, back than directed by Osmel Sousa, known as the Beauty Zar.
In 2017, Menicuccii showed on Instagram an image of Sousa next to his daughter’s car, with the message: “I have a very particular nanny”.
The former president of the Miss Venezuela Organization does not deny his friendship with the Moreno-Menicucci couple. But, by phone, he said before cutting the call: “I have nothing to do with that”. About if any U.S. government officer contacted him, Sousa answered with a brief written message: No, never.
Reporters tried to find out Moreno’s version, but nobody in his press office responds to the mail sent, requesting an interview with him.
Moreno has never been convicted of a crime, but he expelled from the DISIP, a law-enforcement agency that no longer exists. He was briefly jailed twice, in connection with two different homicides. After his second time in jail, he attended law school at a local university. Hugo Chavez appointed him a judge shortly afterward.
Salary of $12,000 per year, $3,000,000 in accounts
The indictment notes that in October 2014, Maikel Moreno told U.S. authorities that he earned $12,000 annually for his work as a member of the judiciary in Venezuela. However, researchers found that between 2012 and 2016, his accounts showed an inflow of $3,000,000.
Of that amount, at least $700,000 transferred from the companies Western Cape and Eaton Global Limited, both related to the person identified in the file as Conspirator 1.
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According to the document, this person is “a former criminal lawyer in Venezuela, who currently controls a media outlet in Venezuela”. Lawyer Raul Gorrin, the owner of the Globovision television station, attended the same Santa Maria university as Moreno and they have been linked in at least one U.S investigation.
The company Eaton Global Limited is also on file in the South Florida Court on 25 July 2018 for laundering $1.2 billion in the PDVSA fraud. This indictment points out the participation of a television media owner in Venezuela.
Investigations show that this man is Gorrin, the president also of the Seguros La Vitalicia insurance company, and who is wanted by the United States for being an alleged accomplice of Alejandro Andrade.
For this note, an attempt made to interview Gorrin but there was no answer to the mail sent to Globovision.
Taking bribes
The indictment emphasizes the alleged enrichment of Moreno through bribes to dictate criminal and civil sentences favorable to whoever pays.
In this part of the file, the prosecutor cites two sources, one is an ex-partner, and the other, a colleague very close to Moreno. Both describe situations in which they witnessed the president of the Supreme Court collecting bribes of $100,000 or more to pass a favorable sentence.
Among the cases detailed is that of the collection of a bribe from a General Motors lawyer to allow the sale of the automaker’s plant. They agreed to pay him a commission for his services.
Besides, he says that as part of a scheme to defraud PDVSA, he received in payment a villa located in Alto Hatillo, valued at $ 1,000,000.
