Víctor Vargas Irausquin, owner of the Banco Occidental de Descuento (BOD), left Carmen Leonor Santaella, his lifelong wife, mother of his daughters, and the source of his fortune, to be with María Beatriz Hernández, a woman 30 years younger with whom he recently had an illegitimate child. Vargas obtained a divorce in May 2013, according to Judge Anna Alejandra Morales from the Twentieth Municipal Court of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas. However, this decision has been overturned by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela (TSJ), a body controlled by the chavismo. Consequently, Vargas has faced a significant setback, revealing the shifting political landscape in Venezuela, which will have serious economic repercussions. The ownership of all Vargas’s assets around the world (of dubious origin) will remain shared with Carmen Leonor Santaella. Vargas is known, among other things, for his arrogant statements to the Wall Street Journal claiming that he has been rich all his life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Vargas’s rise and nouveau riche status are well-known among those familiar with the history behind fortunes in Venezuela.
Vargas was a fortune hunter, middle-class, until he got involved with Carmen Santaella (photo), whose family owned banks and other considerable businesses. Carmen gifted Victor his first decent car (an Alfa Romeo). It was in the Santaella family’s businesses that Vargas began to dive into the financial sector, and once there, launched his banking career. However, it was with Hugo Chavez that Vargas made his current fortune. The claim that he has been rich all his life is entirely false. His wife has been the one who was rich her whole life. Yet, Vargas’s ambition knows no bounds, going from an office boy for the Santaellas to owning polo teams, $70 million homes, yachts, and private jets. After using his regional bank to make deals with the Chavez regime, Vargas wanted to buy Banco de Venezuela, which at the time (2008) was the largest in Venezuela, owned by the Grupo Santander of Emilio Botín. Vargas put down $150 million as an option, which Botín never returned once Chavez decided to buy Banco de Venezuela. Vargas sued Botín and his group in Spain and won the case. Vargas’s lawyer, Ramón José Medina, who won the lawsuit against Botín, is one of the most important figures in the Venezuelan opposition and has been employed by Vargas for years. Thus, the so-called “Chavez banker” is the boss and employer of one of the key figures in the opposition.
It seems that chavista justice wants to teach a lesson to someone who thinks they are the top dog. The ruling by the Civil Cassation Chamber of the TSJ contains gems such as the following:
In this way, the judge who ordered the opening of an evidential articulation in the divorce trial based on Article 185-A of the Civil Code and declared the marriage dissolved violated due process, as such evidential articulation is not contemplated in said norm. The correct approach, given the spouse’s refusal for more than five (5) years regarding the marital breakdown, would have been to terminate the procedure and order the filing of the case.
In this regard, the judge did not appropriately exercise the powers granted by law. Since there was opposition from the spouse, she should have concluded the voluntary jurisdiction process initiated. Such contradiction is not characteristic of voluntary jurisdiction but rather of a “contentious procedure,” which should be addressed according to corresponding regulations, and not through the opening of an evidential articulation followed by declaring the marriage dissolved.
Thus, the factual situation put forth by the applicant and a thorough review of the documents show that the claims and issues arising from this dispute justify the use of avocamiento as a substitute for the ordinary and extraordinary means established to resolve the controversy, as this situation violated the right to defense of the requesting party, given that the judge used a procedure not provided by law to declare the marriage dissolved, contravening the procedural framework set forth in the prevailing legal system.
This behavior by the judge should not be accepted, as it would incite social chaos by allowing justice administrators to resolve conflicts without fully complying with due process. In the present case, the “right to family protection,” “the right to marriage,” the “right to due process,” the “right to defense” of the applicant for avocamiento, and the right to be heard by an impartial court were all blatantly violated, causing legal insecurity and procedural imbalance, which is fundamentally contrary to the principles governing our legal order.
Therefore, to restore the infringed legal status, the decision issued on May 13, 2013, by the Twentieth Municipal Court of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas, which declared the marriage of Víctor José de Jesús Vargas Irausquin and Carmen Leonor Santaella de Vargas dissolved, is declared null and void. The procedure is to be terminated, and the case file ordered to be archived, in light of the spouse’s denial of the facts stated by the divorce applicant regarding the marital breakdown for over five (5) years and the opposition from the Public Ministry’s prosecutor, in accordance with Article 185-A of the Civil Code. Thus, it is decided.
Additionally, this Court cannot overlook the actions of Judge Anna Alejandra Morales, which represent a grave and inexcusable error in not upholding the legal order and ensuring proper and effective administration of justice, violating the ethical principles that judges of the Republic must uphold.
As a result, the judge’s actions could constitute disciplinary misconduct attributable to her as referred to in Article 33 ordinal 20° of the Code of Ethics of the Venezuelan Judge, hence a certified copy of this decision is to be sent to the General Inspection of Courts for the corresponding legal purposes and to the Public Ministry for the initiation of the corresponding investigation. Thus, it is decided.
In other words, it has cost Vargas dearly to have used his considerable power to influence (bribe?) the judge who granted him the divorce, thus violating due process. But this is not the first setback experienced by the “banker”; according to the Wall Street Journal, Vargas lied about a fraud committed by employees of CapitalBank Corp, a New York bank that was intervened by the authorities, in which he held a 21% stake. For that reason, Vargas cannot invest in the American financial sector without explicit permission from the authorities of that country.