Last week, a source in D.C. informed me about Al Cardenas’s desperation to “get out” of the Derwick Associates lawsuit “as quickly as possible.” I reached out to Cárdenas and Joseph DeMaria for comments, but unfortunately, neither responded. Last Friday, Derwick Associates settled their dubious lawsuit in Miami against the Banco Venezolano de Crédito (BVC), Oscar García Mendoza, and Rafael Alfonzo. It was reported that the only requirement from Derwick was to obtain a non-contravention guarantee from BVC et al. Additionally, it is noteworthy that Florida circuit judge John W. Thornton dismissed Derwick’s lawsuit with prejudice. Wow, what a shame…
Readers will remember that it all started with a couple of articles by an award-winning journalist (Cesar Batiz) in Venezuela’s most popular newspaper (Últimas Noticias), exposing a huge corruption scandal, involving Derwick Associates, run by two twenty-somethings (Alejandro Betancourt López and Pedro Trebbau López), who overcharged the Venezuelan state by hundreds of millions of dollars through a series of no-bid energy contracts awarded by totally corrupt officials from the Hugo Chávez regime, under mysterious and highly likely illegal circumstances. The novelty of this particular case is that the two fools running the company thought it would be great to sue their supposed critics (BVC and others) in a Miami court. Well, that turned out to be a costly mistake, as predicted. After this deeply embarrassing turn of events, Derwick Associates may think they got away with it, but the truth is their troubles have just begun.
In future posts, I will be revealing more about the associates of Derwick (no pun intended) in the U.S.: Héctor Torres, Al Cardenas, and especially, FTI Consulting. Stay tuned…