charges

March 19 (UPI) — Law enforcement officials arrested Joseph Duggar, one of the stars of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting on sex abuse charges involving a 9-year-old girl, Florida authorities said.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office said Duggar, 31, was arrested Wednesday by authorities in Arkansas and was awaiting extradition to Florida.

He faces charges of lewd and lascivious behavior by a person 18 years or older, and lewd and lascivious behavior involving a victim less than 12 years old.

Duggar’s arrest came after a 14-year-old girl told the Tontitown Police Department in Arkansas about sexual abuse that took place when she was 9 years old. She said there were several incidents during a family vacation to Panama City Beach, Fla., in 2020.

“The victim reported Duggar repeatedly asked her to sit on his lap,” a news release from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said.

“As the vacation continued, he also asked her to sit next to him on a couch and covered them with a blanket.”

The release said that during this time, Duggar inappropriately touched the girl. The girl told police that Duggar later apologized and stopped the alleged actions.

The sheriff’s office did not specify how Duggar and the girl knew each other. The release said the girl told her father about the alleged incidents, and her father confronted Duggar on Tuesday.

“Duggar admitted his actions to the victim’s father and to Tontitown detectives,” the release said.

Joseph Duggar’s eldest brother, Josh Duggar, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison in 2022 on a child pornography conviction. The family’s reality show on TLC was canceled in 2015 after a police report revealed that Josh Duggar molested younger girls.

DALLAS — A federal jury Friday convicted nine people — eight on terrorism charges — over a shooting at a Texas immigration facility that federal prosecutors tied to antifa, the decentralized far-left movement that has become a target of the Trump administration.

One person was also found guilty of attempted murder after prosecutors say he opened fire last summer outside the Prairieland Detention Center outside Fort Worth, wounding a police officer. The Justice Department called the violence an attack plotted by antifa operatives, but attorneys for the accused denied that characterization, saying there were no antifa associations and that there was merely a demonstration with fireworks before gunshots broke out.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of President Trump, presided over the nearly three-week trial in Fort Worth. It was closely followed by legal experts and critics who called the proceedings a test of the lengths the government can go to punish protesters.

FBI Director Kash Patel had said the case was the first time charges of providing material support to terrorists had targeted people accused of being antifa members.

“Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not an organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

Protesters denied having antifa ties

Defense attorneys told jurors that there was no plan for violence on July 4 outside the facility in Alvarado.

Of the nine defendants on trial, eight faced the charge of providing material support to terrorists, among other charges. The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was charged with corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. He was found guilty of both.

Sanchez Estrada’s attorney, Christopher Weinbel, said he can’t believe jurors “came to this conclusion.” Weinbel said his client had deployed as a member of the U.S. Army several times and he’d hoped what he sacrificed for the country “meant something.”

“But I feel like it turned its back on justice with this. … The U.S. lost today with this verdict,” Weinbel said.

Prosecutor Shawn Smith told jurors during closing arguments that the group’s actions — including bringing firearms and first aid kits and wearing body armor — were all signs of nefarious intent. He said they practiced “antifa tactics” and were “obsessed with operational security.”

Attorneys for the defendants have said that there was no planned ambush and that protesters who brought firearms did so for their own protection — in a state with very lenient gun laws.

A test of 1st Amendment rights

The terrorism charges followed Trump’s order last fall to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Those charges did not require a tie to any organization, and there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. That’s in part because organizations operating within the United States are protected by broad 1st Amendment rights.

Critics of the Justice Department’s case have said the outcome could have wide-reaching effects on protests.

“That opposition is something that the government wants to squash, so a case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protests and also helps them kind of intimidate, increase the fear, hoping that folks in other cities then will think twice over protesting,” said Suzanne Adely, interim president of the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive legal group.

Trial focused on shots fired

Attorneys for the defendants have said most protesters began leaving when two guards from the center came outside. That was before any shots were fired.

Prosecutors said Benjamin Song, a former Marine Corps reservist, yelled, “Get to the rifles,” and opened fire, striking one police officer who had just pulled up to the center.

Though it was Song who opened fire, prosecutors charged several other protesters with attempted murder of an officer and discharging a firearm, but they were found not guilty. The prosecution had argued that from the group’s planning, it was foreseeable to those others that a shooting could happen.

The officer who was shot, Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, testified that when responding to the scene he saw a person clad in all-black with their face covered and carrying a rifle. He told jurors he was shot with a round that went into his shoulder and out of his neck.

Song’s attorney, Phillip Hayes, told jurors during closing arguments that there wasn’t a call to arms before Gross arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. Hayes suggested that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer.

Leading up to the trial, several people pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists after being accused of supporting antifa. They face up to 15 years in prison at sentencing.

Some of them testified for the prosecution, including Seth Sikes, who said he went to the detention center because he wanted to bring some joy to those held inside.

“I felt like I was doing the right thing,” he said.

Stengle writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

Ghana international Thomas Partey faced initial charges of rape just days after leaving Arsenal last summer.

Former Arsenal player Thomas Partey intends to plead not guilty to two new charges of rape, his lawyer told a London court on Friday.

The 32-year-old Ghana midfielder, who now plays for Spanish club Villarreal, is separately awaiting trial on five counts of rape related to two women and one count of sexual assault involving a third woman.

The new charges were brought after a different woman alleged Partey twice raped her on the same day in December 2020. According to a court hearing on Friday, the new allegations arose after the first set of charges were publicised.

Partey was not required to attend Friday’s preliminary session at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. His lawyer, Emma Fenn, indicated he intends to plead not guilty to both charges. The next court date for the case is April 10.

Partey pleaded not guilty to the first set of charges and faces trial in November at Southwark Crown Court. Those alleged offences were between 2021 and 2022, prosecutors have said.

The midfielder had joined Arsenal in 2020 from Atletico Madrid.

He was initially charged last July, just days after his Arsenal contract expired. Villarreal signed him in August, two days after he was granted bail.

Ghana has qualified for the World Cup and is in the same group as England, Croatia and Panama.

Partey played in three World Cup qualifying games in September and October. He has made more than 50 appearances for Ghana.

The Israeli military has dropped charges against five soldiers, whose alleged sexual abuse of a Palestinian detainee was caught on camera. The video caused international outrage but also led to protests in support of the soldiers in Israel.

The California State Bar has charged a founding partner of Downtown LA Law Group, a law firm at the center of a scandal that has embroiled Los Angeles County’s historic sex abuse settlement, with signing up dozens of clients in states where none of the firm’s lawyers were licensed to practice.

The bar charged Salar Hendizadeh, who left the firm this fall, on March 5 with helping one of Southern California’s largest personal injury law firms sign accident victims across the country, despite lacking attorneys who could litigate the cases in other states. Hendizadeh was charged with eleven counts, including deceptive advertising and charging illegal fees.

State Bar Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona said in a statement the allegations, if proved, “represent dishonest and illegal conduct.”

Hendizadeh and a spokesperson for Downtown LA Law Group did not provide a comment Monday.

The firm had roughly 40 clients in Texas, where it operated under the name “Lone Star Injury Law Firm” and branded itself “Texas’s #1 Injury Law Firm,” according to the complaint.

The firm had one L.A.-based attorney licensed to practice in Texas, Darren McBratney, but he left the firm in early 2022. The bar claims the firm refused to remove the attorney’s name from its website for years, ignoring a cease and desist letter from McBratney’s new employer.

Typically, attorneys can take cases in states where they’re not licensed, but they need to partner with local counsel or get permission from the court. In many cases, the bar alleged, DTLA made no effort to do so and left their out-of-state clients in the lurch.

The firm told a Maryland car crash victim her case was worth $1 million and encouraged her to see a California spinal surgeon who charged roughly $300,000 for surgery, according to the complaint. She fired the firm after she got a settlement offer of $160,000 — not enough, she believed, to cover her medical fees, the complaint said.

Attorneys signed up a Tennessee client who was injured at a Nashville rental car business, but the one-year statute of limitations ran out before they filed the case, the bar complaint said. The firm offered to pay for all of his medical bills and one year of physical therapy “as a form of restitution,” according to the complaint.

The charges come as DTLA faces another pending investigation from the State Bar in connection with thousands of sexual abuse lawsuits the firm filed against Los Angeles County, along with a probe from the district attorney’s office. Both have said they are looking into allegations surfaced by The Times last fall that DTLA paid clients to file claims, some of which were allegedly fabricated, that became part of a $4-billion settlement, the largest of its kind in U.S. history. The firm has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing.

The firm was founded by three longtime friends: Daniel Azizi and Farid Yaghoubtil, who are cousins, and Hendizadeh, a friend from elementary school. They began working together in August 2013, the month Hendizadeh got his California bar license, according to the complaint.

The bar complaint charges only Hendizadeh, though it also mentions Yaghoubtil, who shared the responsibility for marketing and client intake, according to the complaint.

The bar says Yaghoubtil repeatedly asked for a referral fee from a woman injured in a Michigan drugstore after she dropped the firm for allegedly taking too long to file her lawsuit. The client had to find her own attorney, the bar said, eliminating the need for a referral fee.

“Why would you tell the lawyers to not pay us a referral fee? That makes no sense.” Yaghoubtil texted the woman on Aug. 16, 2022. “But why not let us get the referral fee? Very sad. Have a nice night.”

A pimp whose sex worker allegedly advertised on social media that she was willing to be anything from “arm candy” for a party to a “no strings attached girlfriend” has been charged with a slew of criminal charges in Kern County Superior Court.

The alleged pimp, Kevin Mays, was an assistant men’s basketball coach and former player at Cal State Bakersfield.

Mays faces 11 charges, including pimping, possession of automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines, and possession of methamphetamine and marijuana with intent to sell. An investigation by the Bakersfield Police Department also led to separate charges citing Mays for possession of more than 600 images of youth or child pornography and distribution of obscene matter involving someone younger than 18.

Mays, who was arrested in September 2025, is being held without bail. He has pleaded not guilty, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 13 .

The case, first reported by Shwetha Surendran of ESPN, has upended the athletic department at CSU Bakersfield. Longtime basketball coach Rod Barnes and athletic director Kyle Condor have left their jobs, and Condor filed a lawsuit against the school alleging wrongful termination, according to court documents obtained by The Times.

CSU Bakersfield officials said the allegations against Mays did not involve a student. Nevertheless, the school formed a commission to examine the athletic program and recommend changes.

“When CSU Bakersfield received an anonymous report in August of 2025 that a member of our coaching staff was engaged in human trafficking, we took immediate action in notifying university police and the Bakersfield Police Department,” the school wrote in a statement. “Both agencies launched investigations that resulted in an arrest within days. Shortly after, the university terminated the coach.

“But the nature of the allegations devastated our campus community. We seized the opportunity to strengthen education and prevention efforts around human trafficking. To that end, we consulted with a local human trafficking expert and offered training and education focused on awareness and prevention for our campus community.”

Police said the alleged victim is 23. In the advertisement she posted last summer, she stated that she charged $300 for a half hour and $500 for 60 minutes. Authorities conducted a sting operation in September, arranging to meet her in a hotel room that Mays rented.

In an interview with police after the operation, she referred to Mays as her boyfriend and said he paid for her travel accommodations in Oregon, Washington and Nevada in addition to California.

Those locations were listed in an anonymous email to Barnes last fall titled “IMPORTANT MESSAGE 911 911.”

“HE IS TRAFFICKING A GIRL BY THE NAME OF [redacted],” the email read, according to police records. “HE HAS BEEN TRAFFICKING THIS GIRL SINCE MAY.”

Barnes turned over the email to university police, who attempted to contact the sender and received a subsequent email, according to ESPN. The tipster claimed to have known the alleged victim and Mays through previous travel for sex work. The person said Mays presented himself as a professional gambler and allegedly threatened to take away the tipster’s child if the person exposed his activities.

Mays, who was born in Queens, N.Y., attended high school at St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, Wis., and played at Odessa Community College in Odessa, Texas, before transferring to CSU Bakersfield ahead of the 2014-2015 season.

“We are excited about signing Kevin as he fits our culture,” Barnes said of Mays at the time.

A year later, as a senior forward, Mays helped CSU Bakersfield to a 24-10 record and scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds in the Roadrunners’ first-round NCAA tournament loss to Oklahoma. He later returned to the school as a player-development coordinator.

In his application for the player-development position in 2019, Mays wrote that he was motivated by helping players improve on and off the court, according to school records obtained by ESPN.

“I gained lots of experience dealing with learning to lead young men and help them navigate the Division I experience in a successful manner,” Mays wrote. “CSUB helped me tremendously, and I look forward to giving back.”

Barnes was Mays’ coach, and he hired his former player last fall, paying him $3,000 a month. Now, Mays is in jail awaiting trial and Barnes is unemployed.

“The safety and well-being of our students and all CSU Bakersfield community members remain our highest priority,” the school said in its statement. “This work is sustained every day by the dedication of our faculty, staff and students. Their commitment to one another and to our shared values strengthens the culture of care and accountability we strive to build at CSUB.”

RAPPER Sean “Diddy” Combs will be getting out of the slam faster than expected amid his battle to appeal his four-year sentence.

The hip-hop mogul, locked up on prostitution-related charges, will now walk free a month and a half earlier than his previous release date of June 4, 2028.

He will now be released on April 25, 2028 according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records obtained by Page Six.

The 56-year-old music legend, currently serving a 50-month sentence at Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey, earned the early release after being accepted into a drug-abuse rehabilitation program in November.

A rep for Diddy said at the time: “Mr. Combs is an active participant in the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP) and has taken his rehabilitation process seriously from the start.

“He is fully engaged in his work, focused on growth, and committed to positive change.”

brutal MOMENT

I looked Diddy in the eye as Cassie gave evidence… his reaction left me cold

DIDDY CLAIMS

Justin Bieber finally breaks silence on rumors he was abused by P Diddy

This isn’t the first shake-up in Diddy‘s prison saga.

His sentence initially pegged at May 8, 2028, was bumped to June 4, 2028, last November after he allegedly broke prison rules—reportedly sipping homemade alcohol and taking part in a forbidden three-way phone call.

TMZ revealed the DIY booze involved sugar, Fanta, and apples left to ferment for two weeks.

Diddy’s team, however, defended the call, claiming it was protected under attorney-client privilege.

His spokesperson told Page Six: “Mr. Combs is in his first week at FCI Fort Dix and is focused on adjusting, working on himself, and doing better each day.

“As with any high-profile individual in a new environment, there will be many rumors and exaggerated stories throughout his time there—most of them untrue.

“We ask that people give him the benefit of the doubt, the privacy to focus on his personal growth with grace and purpose.”

Photos recently published by TMZ offered the first glimpse of Diddy behind bars.

The Bad Boy Records founder, now sporting a gray pullover, sweatpants, and a scruffy gray goatee, appeared to grin at a fellow inmate while strolling a prison corridor.

Reflecting on his fall from grace, Diddy poured out his heart in a four-page apology letter before the sentencing.

He admitted: “I literally lost my mind. I’m sorry for that and always will be… I lost my way. My downfall was rooted in my selfishness.

“I have been humbled and broken to my core… The old me died in jail and a new version of me was born. Prison will change you or kill you – I choose to live.”

Diddy celebrated his 56th birthday behind bars with a pizza dinner and has already taken a prison job doing laundry duty, according to sources.

Meanwhile, legal wrangling continues.

Diddy filed an appeal in December, seeking either immediate release or a reduced sentence, arguing prosecutors failed to prove their case and claiming his original sentence violated his constitutional rights.

Prosecutors pushed back in February.

Locked up since his September 2024 arrest, Diddy was convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking charges, narrowly avoiding a far longer stay behind bars.

Even the White House reportedly got involved, with Diddy’s team seeking a potential pardon from Donald Trump, who acknowledged the request, saying:

“A lot of people have asked me for pardons. I call him Puff Daddy; he has asked me for a pardon.”

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has broadened its prosecution of the protesters involved in a church demonstration to 39 people, up from nine.

The demonstration was part of a backlash to Trump’s deadly immigration surge in the midwestern state of Minnesota, but officials have sought to frame the protest as an attack on religious freedom.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the expanded indictment on Friday in a message posted to social media.

“Today, [the Justice Department] unsealed an indictment charging 30 more people who took part in the attack on Cities Church in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote. “At my direction, federal agents have already arrested 25 of them, with more to come throughout the day.”

She added a warning to other protesters who might seek to disrupt a religious service.

“YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP,” Bondi said. “If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you. This Department of Justice STANDS for Christians and all Americans of faith.”

Appealing to Christian voters

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has sought to appeal to Christian conservatives by launching initiatives, for example, to root out anti-Christian bias and prevent alleged acts of Christian persecution, both domestically and in countries like Nigeria.

But critics have accused his administration of attempting to stifle opposition through its prosecution of the Minnesota protest attendees.

Some of those indicted deny even being a part of the January 18 protest. Defendants like former CNN anchor Don Lemon and reporter Georgia Fort say they attended in their capacity as journalists.

Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges and have publicly questioned whether their prosecution is an attempt to curtail freedom of the press.

The superseding indictment, filed on Thursday, levies two counts against the 39 defendants, accusing them of conspiracy against the right of religious freedom and efforts to injure, intimidate or interfere with the exercise of religious freedom.

“While inside the Church, defendants collectively oppressed, threatened and intimidated the Church’s congregants and pastors by physically occupying the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the church,” the indictment reads

It also describes the protesters as “engaging in menacing and threatening behavior” by “chanting and yelling loudly” and obstructing exits.

A magistrate judge on January 22 initially rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to charge nine attendees who were at the protest.

But the department sought a grand jury indictment instead, which was filed on January 29 and made public the next day.

A reaction to Trump’s immigration surge

The protest, dubbed “Operation Pullup”, was conceived as a response to the violent immigration crackdown that had unfolded in Minnesota.

Many of the enforcement efforts centred on the metropolitan area that includes the Twin Cities: St Paul and Minneapolis.

Trump had repeatedly blamed the area’s large Somali American population for a welfare fraud scandal involving government funds for programmes like Medicaid and school lunches.

In December, the Trump administration surged federal immigration agents to the region, nicknaming the effort Operation Metro Surge. At its height, as many as 3,000 agents were in the Minneapolis-St Paul area.

But the effort was plagued by reports of excessive violence towards detainees and protesters alike. Videos circulated of officers breaking the car windows of legal observers, pepper-spraying protesters and beating people.

Officers also engaged in the practice of entering homes forcibly without a judicial warrant, which advocates described as a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Cases of unlawful arrests were also reported.

But a turning point came on January 7, when an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was caught on camera shooting into the vehicle of 37-year-old mother Renee Good. She died, and her killing sparked nationwide protests.

Operation Pullup took place at Cities Church in St Paul less than two weeks later.

It was intended as a demonstration against the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, who serves as a local official for ICE.

Several protesters have indicated that they are prepared to fight the government’s charges over the incident, citing their First Amendment rights to free speech.

Some also said that they intended to remain vigilant towards government immigration operations, even after Trump administration officials announced Operation Metro Surge was winding down in mid-February.

“This is not the time to be Minnesota Nice,” one protester, civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong, wrote on social media last week. “It’s time for truth, justice, and freedom to prevail.”

Feb. 24 (UPI) — Actor and comedian Russell Brand pleaded not guilty to two additional sexual charges in a British court Tuesday, including one for rape.

Brand, 50, was charged in December with the rape and sexual assault of two women, which allegedly happened in 2009. He appeared at Southwark Crown Court for the plea and trial preparation hearing.

He has pleaded not guilty charges of two counts of rape, one charge of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault for offenses against four women that happened between 1999 and 2005.

He appeared Tuesday in a glass-paneled dock carrying a Bible stuffed with sticky notes. He spoke to confirm his name and plea.

Judge Joel Nathan Bennathan said, “Mr. Brand I’m sure you’ve heard everything we’ve been talking about. I will renew your bail.”

Bennathan asked if Brand understood his bail conditions, and Brand replied, “Yes, your lordship.”

His trial on the other five charges is expected later this year.

Brand has previously denied all allegations against him.

He is also a defendant in a civil case that alleges he sexually assaulted an anonymous plaintiff on the set of the remake movie “Arthur” in 2010.

Brand was married to singer Katy Perry from October 2010 to December 2011. He is now married to Laura Gallacher, who is the mother of Brand’s two daughters and a son.

Appearing in a London court, Brand denies accusations of raping one woman ​and sexually assaulting another in 2009.

British comedian and actor Russell Brand ⁠has pleaded not guilty to two further charges of rape and sexual assault nearly ⁠two decades ago.

Brand appeared at Southwark Crown ⁠Court in London on Tuesday and denied accusations of raping one woman and sexually assaulting a second woman in 2009.

Once one of the United Kingdom’s most high-profile broadcasters, he was charged last year with two counts of rape, one count of indecent assault and two ‌counts of sexual assault against four women between 1999 and 2005.

Brand pleaded not guilty in May last year to those five charges and is due to stand trial in June. A hearing will be held next month to decide whether the new allegations should be joined to that case, with Brand’s lawyer ⁠saying his client needs more time to address ⁠the latest offences.

“These new charges are in relation to two further women and are in addition to the charges issued to Brand in April 2025, which involved four women,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement in December.

Brand, 50, arrived at court wearing a white cowboy hat and sunglasses. Asked how he was feeling, the actor, who said in 2024 he had become ⁠a Christian, told reporters he was feeling “blessed”.

Born in 1975 to working-class parents in Essex, east of London, Brand began his stand-up career as a teenager, eventually working as an MTV presenter and host of a reality TV series.

A regular on British screens in the ⁠2000s, he was known for his flamboyant ⁠style and appearance. He also worked as a radio presenter for the BBC.

Brand starred in several films, including Get Him to the Greek in 2010, the ‌same year he married American pop star Katy Perry. They divorced in 2012 after 14 months of marriage.

By the early 2020s, Brand had faded from ‌mainstream ‌culture and has since largely appeared online, airing his views on US politics and free speech.

Feb. 17 (UPI) — The Venezuelan government on Tuesday released Evanan Romero, a Venezuelan-American oil consultant detained four days earlier at the Maracaibo airport, without a judicial warrant or formal charges publicly announced.

Romero, 86, a Venezuelan with U.S. citizenship, was detained by authorities under Delcy Rodríguez’s government while attempting to travel from Maracaibo to Caracas, where he had scheduled a series of meetings with companies in the oil sector.

After an initial detention, Romero spent the first night at Interpol facilities at the airport. The next day, due to his advanced age and medical condition, authorities authorized his transfer to a private clinic in Maracaibo, where he remained under guard, local outlet Efecto Cocuyo reported.

The release occurred without official statements from the government. Local journalists and media outlets, such as Spain’s ABC, reported Romero’s detention.

“I’ve been here since Friday,” the expert said from a private clinic, while guards remained in an adjacent room.

Romero had planned to meet with the local management of Repsol and to participate in a videoconference with Reliance’s leadership in India to discuss a possible return to oil blocks in the Orinoco Belt.

He also had meetings scheduled with investors interested in the energy stabilization phase that would reportedly be coordinated from Washington after the capture of President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military operation Jan. 3.

The consultant had arrived in Venezuela from Panama, with a stop in Colombia, intending to visit a relative before traveling to the capital.

In statements to ABC, Romero said his detention could be linked to a past administrative dispute related to a family investment, which he said was resolved in his favor by the Supreme Court of Justice.

No Venezuelan authority has publicly confirmed that or provided details about the case.

Romero is part of a committee of about 400 former state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela technicians and executives dedicated to developing proposals for rebuilding the energy sector under a future government, Infobae reported.

He has maintained contacts with U.S. oil companies such as Exxon and ConocoPhillips, and his name has appeared in discussions about compensation for expropriated assets and the opening of new blocks, the publication added.

Romero is considered a veteran expert in Venezuela’s oil sector, with more than six decades of experience. He served on the board of PDVSA, since the 1960s, with responsibilities in operational oversight, capital projects and maritime operations.

He later served as president and chief executive officer of Grupo Asesor Petrolero Venezolano LLC, a firm specializing in reservoir performance studies, reserves evaluation, thermal recovery of heavy crude and basin master development plans.

He has also been affiliated with the Harvard Electricity Policy Group at Harvard University.

The detention occurred just days after the visit to Caracas by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright at a time when the White House has intensified pressure for the release of political prisoners and reiterated that reconstruction of the oil sector will depend on clear legal and political guarantees.

President Donald Trump has publicly argued that major U.S. companies should invest billions of dollars to repair deteriorated infrastructure and restore production.