TVPA Trial Regarding the Siege of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá Concludes

By Jordi C. Martínez-Cid

Two weeks ago I wrote about the opening of Urán, et al. v. Plazas Vega, No. 0:22-cv-60338-RAR, the Torture Victim Protection Act case against retired Colombian Colonel Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega arising out of the 1985 siege of Bogotá’s Palace of Justice. On September 17, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not liable on every count. Col. Plazas was cleared of both a conspiracy theory and a command-responsibility theory, as to both the torture and the extrajudicial killing of Magistrate Carlos Horacio Urán Rojas.

For those who didn’t follow the trial, I’ll say it again, the Miami Law Human Rights Program’s Substack did a remarkable job of it and it is from them I am getting most of my information. This post won't do it justice, so check it out for yourselves here: https://miamilawhumanrightsprogram.substack.com/p/uran-et-al-v-plazas-vega.

Some highlights from my reading. Plaintffs hired Forensic Architecture, a research group that painstakingly synchronized forty-year-old news camera footage, military radio traffic, and witness statements into a single reconstructed timeline. Both sides spent a tremendous amount of time on this as you might imagine. A former military informant was called to testify and was crossed. A former auxiliary magistrate who testified he saw Mag. Urán’s body on the Palace floor was confronted with a 1986 video of himself saying, three times, “I didn’t see him.” Even Col. Plazas himself testified, insisting that his command was limited and that overall command belonged to General Jesús Armando Arias Cabrales. He was quoted as saying that “You can't shoot at the enemy and ask guerrillas for ID at the same time.” Pressed on inconsistencies with his own prior declarations and five books on the siege, he repeatedly told plaintiffs’ counsel some version of either “I don't remember” or “this happened 40 years ago.”

In closing, plaintiffs’ counsel argued that “Urán survived M-19 [the guerilla group] . . . but he did not survive the Colombian military.” The defense’s response was more clinical: “The tragedy is clear. The connection is not.” Judge Ruiz instructed the jury that they were not bound by the Colombian courts’ own findings of Col. Plazas's 2010 conviction and his 2015 acquittal, but that they could give them whatever weight they thought appropriate. After eight trial days and a little over three hours of deliberation, which included three questions from the jury, the jury submitted a complete defense verdict. President Abelardo de la Espriella, who I had mentioned in my last post for having expressed support of Col. Plazas, reiterated his full support.

Credit: Forensic Architecture's 3D model of the Palace of Justice and Plaza de Bolívar.

2026 S.D. Fla. Hispanic Heritage Event

 By Jordi C. Martínez-Cid

Yesterday was the district's Hispanic Heritage event featuring José Herrera Paz, a partner at Hinshaw Culbertson; Aymee Valdivia, a partner at Holland & Knight; Amys Serret, Chief Justice Couriel's law clerk (and soon to be law clerk to Chief Judge Altonaga); and moderated by Patricia Sánchez Abril, Dean of the UM Law School. Assistant County Attorney Fabiana Cohen made the introductory remarks.

The panel was about whether Miami is still the gateway to the Americas. The answer is yes, but I think we all anticipated that. What stood out and made the event so positive was the passion of the presenters and the sense of pride it helped generate about our community and our country. The American Dream is still alive, and though each of the presenters had their own difficult journey, there was a sense that, at least in Miami, the community at large wanted them to and helped them succeed.

The event was well attended and as always, there was way too much food at the reception. Special thank you to Judge López-Castro (back of head pictured below) and Judge Hernández who chair the committee that puts on the event.

Why was this objection sustained?

By David Oscar Markus

 CourtTV has some background on this fascinating pro se murder defendant:

Tomasz Kosowski, 47, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Steven Cozzi, 41, who disappeared in March 2023. Cozzi was representing a group of people being sued by Kosowski at the time of his disappearance; prosecutors say Kosowski, angry and frustrated over the lawsuit, killed the victim in a bathroom at Cozzi’s law firm. Kosowski, a Dartmouth Medical School graduate, is representing himself at trial and has waived his right to a jury, meaning Judge Joseph Bulone will decide his fate.

I love his cross:

During Tuesday’s cross-examination, Kosowski focused on what prosecutors said he did: kill the victim in the bathroom, then load the body into a Gorilla Cart that he wheeled to his truck. Then, prosecutors said, Kosowski eventually moved the body to a second car, drove it to a dumpster and disposed of it. Despite extensive search efforts, Cozzi’s remains have never been found.

"How did I get that Gorilla Cart onto the truck?” Kosowski asked. “From what I recall, [Cozzi] weighed about 190 pounds,” Bolton said. “It’s a movable amount of weight. It can be lifted. It was in a wagon. But that’s an amount of weight that can be picked up and put in the bed of a truck.”


Kosowski: “Are you physically fit?”
Bolton: “I would think so.”
Kosowski: “Do you exercise?”
Bolton: “I do.”
Kosowski: “Do you lift weights?”
Bolton: “I do.”
Kosowski: “OK, would you be willing to help in a demonstration?”
Bolton: “Yeah, I could. Sure.”

Kosowski pointed at a desk in the room and said it measured 30 inches high—close to his Tundra’s 28 inches. “I would say that’s a pretty good analog, maybe a little bit less, of the height that somebody would have to lift a person to load it onto the Toyota tailgate,” Kosowski said. “Now, we have a Gorilla Cart in evidence right now. What I propose we do is that we take that Gorilla Cart, we ask for a volunteer that’s approximately 190, 195 pounds to get into that Gorilla Cart. And I would like you to lift that Gorilla Cart with that person onto the desk.”

Prosecutors objected to the proposed demonstration; Bulone sustained it, saying that Kosowski had made his point. But the defendant wasn’t done. “He’s telling you,” Kosowski said, pointing at Bolton, “that I committed the murder, and he’s trying to kill me for it,” he added, pointing to the prosecution team. “That is their theory. The least they have to do now is show me that this is plausible. Now, because of my career, I know what it’s like to transfer 195-pound people all the time because I transfer people from … OR tables to gurneys all the time, all right? If your theory is real, you should have no problem lifting that cart up with a 195-pound person onto that desk.”

Bulone again denied Kosowski’s request but said he would consider it.

But why was the objection sustained??

Here's a video of the exchange.  

Tom Goldstein strikes back

By David Oscar Markus

 I am biased here, I admit.  I like Tom and am rooting for him.  I think the trial was way overblown and the consequences are absurd.  I'm glad to see that he has a great appellate lawyer and lots of amicus supporting him.  You can read those briefs here and here.

Bloomberg covers it:

A former federal prosecutor who once served as personal counsel to President Donald Trump backed a new trial for convicted former Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein, in a friend-of-the-court brief outlining pervasive “prosecutorial misconduct.”

The brief, filed by amicus John Dowd in support of Goldstein’s Fourth Circuit bid for a new trial on federal tax and mortgage fraud charges, condemns what it calls the government’s “convict-by-any-means-necessary approach.”

Goldstein’s appeal identifies what it calls “fatal flaws” in the prosecution — withheld evidence, problematic jury instructions, and improperly excluded evidence — but the conduct underlying those problems “was only part of a far broader pattern of impropriety,” Dowd wrote.

From start to finish, he said, the Justice Department “withheld evidence, mischaracterized the facts, and unpredictably shifted positions to find any workable way to target Goldstein.”

The amicus brief also claims the government misled the court repeatedly, including in its efforts to extend the statute of limitations on some of the charged offenses.

Dowd was a prosecutor in DOJ’s Tax Division and chief of an organized crime strike force in the Criminal Division before entering private practiceHe is well-known for representing Trump, for a time, in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion with Russia. He resigned while the investigation was still underway.

Alleged Russian Plot Involves Cuban "God"

 By Jordi C. Martínez-Cid

This a glib title for an allegedly serious plot being charged out of the Southern District of New York. The indictment chargies five people, allegedly working at the direction of Russian military intelligence, with conspiring to finance terrorism and, for three of them, to commit murder for hire. Two of the five are Cuban nationals.

The defendants are: Yuri Khrameev, 63, a retired Russian intelligence colonel; his son Kirill Khrameev, 27, allegedly an FSB officer; Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, a Cuban national; Yaidel Delgado Suarez, 35, also Cuban, known as “Viking”; and Angel Eduardo Castro, 22, a Venezuelan national. All five remain abroad and none is in custody. Prosecutors allege that in 2026 the network recruited a Venezuelan immigrant in Brooklyn to surveil, and ultimately offered $40,000 to “eliminate,” a Russian dissident believed to be living near Washington, D.C. A parallel 2025 thread allegedly involved an American recruit near the Estonia-Russia border, offered roughly $25,000 to kill a man in Vilnius, Lithuania, for “telling lies about Russia,” and arson jobs when he declined. In 2024, the network is separately accused of directing actual arson and sabotage attacks on businesses and infrastructure in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Lithuania.

Which brings me to Mr. Romagoza.  By the government’s account and international reporting, he has spent at least the last seven years in Petrozavodsk, Russia, teaching salsa at a studio called Made in Cuba. He married a Russian woman in 2022 and took her citizenship. By 2023, evidently under financial strain, he began recruiting on Facebook and Telegram—offering $1,500 and bonuses per “job” to Latin Americans chasing construction work in Poland or mercenary contracts in Ukraine—under the aliases “Adrian” and, I am not making this up, “Dios.” Spanish for God. He allegedly coordinated the attacks in Prague and Lithuania in 2024 and, as recently as November 2025, obtained surveillance footage of the Washington-area dissident’s home.

Less surprising to me than a Cuban giving himself the call sign God is that, as of yet, there is seemingly no tie to the dstrict. But there is something almost novelistic about a man who by day taught dance to Russian retirees and by night, under the name God, allegedly ran a transcontinental sabotage-and-recruitment operation for Russian Intelligence.  How can that not have anything to do with Miami? Movie to feature Andy Garcia and Nestor Carbonell.

CLEs, Mentorship Opportunity, and UM

By John R. Byrne 

1. The Florida bar has added some exotic CLE requirements in recent years, including professionalism and technology. Take it from someone who just squeaked by his recent CLE credits deadline, some of those are harder to come by than you'd think. But you have some excellent CLE opportunities coming up here courtesy of the South Florida Chapter of the FBA.

• September 24, 2026 (Thursday) @ Boies Schiller Flexner LLP: Demystifying Artificial Intelligence with Judge Damian, Magistrate Judge Louis, attorney Mark J. Heise and FIU law students Zachary Stangl. 1.5 General CLE Credits, .5 Ethics and 1.5 Technology. You can register here.

• October 21, 2026 (Wednesday) @ Zoom: Navigating the Local Rules: Guidance from the Bench and Bar with Judge Ruiz, Magistrate Judge Elfenbein, and attorneys Ryan Stumphauzer and Michael Mikulic. 1 General CLE Credit. You can register here. 

2.  If you're interested in serving as a mentor for local law students, you should attend the FBA's Law Student Mentorship/Networking Happy Hour on October 14 @ Batch Gastropub. RSVP here. 

3. Miami Hurricanes football team is experiencing a resurgence recently, making the national title game last season and currently ranked 5th in the AP poll. Big news dropped yesterday, with the school agreeing to a "historic mega deal with Nike." The 10-year deal, which is worth more than $200 million, goes into effect in 2027. There's a SDFLA connection here, though. According to the Herald article, UM Board of Trustees chairman Manny Kadre was the driving force in making the deal happen. Kadre served as one of Judge Moreno's first law clerks.  

Get Your FBA Installation Tickets!

By John R. Byrne

Individual tickets for the South Florida Chapter of the FBA's Installation are now on sale. It's on Saturday, October 3 at the Frost Museum of Science. 

In the tradition of David Letterman, here are the Top Ten Reasons You Should Attend:

10. Drinks and food are free* (*once you pay the price of the admission). 

9. You get to connect with excellent lawyers who regularly practice in this district. 

8. This year, the venue will have air-conditioning! If you attended last year's installation, you know how helpful that is for an indoor event in Miami. We've spared no expense, people. 

7. Our chapter is inviting retired district court and magistrate judges this year. So, you may get a chance to ask Judge Goodman whether any criminal defendant ever admitted to owning horses when he was going through his standard colloquy on indigency. 

6. We're giving out the two big awards---the NED (named after Judge Davis) and the BOB (named after Bob Josefsberg). The NED is being awarded to Judge Gayles and the BOB to David Markus. 

5. This is the first year that we've named the distinguished FBA member service award after Bob Josefsberg and I understand that some of his family may attend the event. It's a nice way to celebrate a really special human being who gave so much to our legal community and the community at large.

4.  There will be speeches (but they'll be short!). I love speeches at events (weddings, investitures, etc.). But we have limited program time so you won't be held hostage for very long. 

3. The event is always well-attended by our federal district court and magistrate judges. You get a chance to speak with them in a setting where there is zero chance of them sanctioning you for any reason. 

2. You're contributing to good causes. The FBA uses profits from the event to subsidize CLE events and to pay for the various community outreach programs it runs, including the Civil Discourse and Difficult Decisions Program. 

1. You get all three bloggers in one room! David O. is getting an award, The Martinez-Cid law firm is a sponsor, and I'm the outgoing president of the FBA and am obligated to attend to hit my contractual incentive payments. 

You can RSVP through this link. 

Lil Durk acquitted in California... with a SDFLA connection

 Big not guilty verdict in Los Angeles on Friday evening.  Lil Durk was acquitted of all counts.  He had a great team of lawyers including Drew Findling and Brian Steel.  

But I know what their secret weapon was -- Christy O'Connor, the former AFPD down here in Miami.  Christy now practices in L.A. and is kicking ass.  Congrats to her and the whole team.