Wilson Sonsini Scores Win In Paramilitary Assassination Case

from Marco Poggio | Oct 17, 2021 at 8:02 pm EDT

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After a paramilitary group in a northeastern region of Colombia shot and killed a local community leader in 2001, the over a thousand people who attended his funeral thought his killers would never be held responsible.

The execution-style murder of Eduardo Estrada, popular in his community, was nothing new: the paramilitary division that shot him, the Bloque Central Bolívar, a self-described “killing machine”, had a reputation for murdering, disappearing and torturing thousands of civilians.

After more than two decades, Carlos Mario Jiménez Naranjo, the military leader charged with the murder of Estrada, has been brought to justice in a US court. A federal judge in Florida ruled last month that Naranjo is liable for Estrada’s brutal death.

The landmark verdict – it was the first time a U.S. court recognized the Colombian government’s support for paramilitary groups that committed human rights abuses – opened the door for Estrada family members to seek damages for his murder.

None of this brings Eduardo Estrada back to life. … But we are very grateful for the opportunity to get some measure of justice.

Lukas A. Liss

Wilson Sonsini

In an order calling Estrada’s murder “cold-blooded and calculated,” South Florida Justice Edwin G. Torres said Naranjo was liable for a total of $ 12 million in damages. Estrada’s civil wife and brother, who filed the lawsuit together, are entitled to $ 2 million in damages and $ 4 million in punitive damages, the order states.

“The evidence shows that the defendant and the BCB targeted Mr. Estrada, hired a hit man to kill him, and did so under their own authority without judicial authorization,” Judge Torres said in the order.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC, who had already interfered in the case in 2010, played a decisive role in the longstanding legal battle.

Working with the Center for Justice & Accountability, an international human rights nonprofit, Wilson Sonsini’s lawyers sifted through thousands of pages of evidence and made several trips to Colombia to drop witnesses, some of whom were former members of the paramilitary group.

“None of this brings Eduardo Estrada back to life. And it’s a sad thing. But we are very grateful for the opportunity to get some measure of justice,” Luke A. Liss, senior counsel at Wilson Sonsini, told Law360.

Claret Vargas, a senior attorney at CJA, said Wilson Sonsini’s involvement in the case was essential to the success of the plaintiffs in the case.

“It was and is a really wonderful partnership,” said Vargas. “That is exactly what really successful and effective pro bono work can do.”

An extrajudicial murder

At the time of his murder, Estrada was a popular and respected parishioner who ran a radio station and was considering running for a local office. He opposed the presence of illegal armed groups controlling the region, including Bloque Central Bolívar. The latter accepted his defiance with suspicion and finally described him as a threat.

“Once you are tagged like that, it’s pretty much decided that they are going to kill you,” said Liss.

In July 2001, a man shot Estrada in front of his wife Sara González Calderon as they were walking home from a party. The sound of the bullet was so loud that Calderon fell to the ground and passed out.

When she regained her senses, she saw a member of the paramilitary group standing over her before she casually walked away. Officers from a nearby police station never bothered to see what happened. Neither Naranjo nor the hit man had to be held accountable.

“They were largely made possible by the local security forces,” said Vargas.

The way Estrada was killed – shot in the back of the head in the middle of an urban area – followed the modus operandi of the paramilitary group and was intended to send a message: Opposition will not be tolerated.

Years of litigation

Naranjo was extradited to the United States for drug trafficking in 2008 after Colombia tried to crush notorious paramilitary groups involved in the atrocities in the country. But Naranjo, who was released from U.S. custody and extradited to Colombia in 2019, was never brought to justice for the murders by the group he led.

In 2010, Wilson Sonsini and CJA filed a lawsuit on behalf of Calderon’s and Estrada’s brother in Miami federal court seeking damages from Naranjo under the Torture Protection Act.

The law, which came into effect in 1992, allows action against anyone involved in torture or extrajudicial killings on behalf of foreign governments while they are under US jurisdiction. Victims of torture or family members of people who have been tortured and killed abroad can assert civil law claims and demand compensation from the perpetrators.

Like other paramilitary groups in Colombia, Bloque Central Bolívar was formed to fight left-wing guerrillas, but quickly evolved into a criminal organization looking to take over drug trafficking in the region. They tortured and killed while the country’s military looked the other way. The Colombian government eventually declared paramilitary groups illegal and the United States labeled them terrorist organizations.

“They couldn’t operate without the government’s approval. They had a symbiotic relationship with her, mainly because the military saw them as their best tool against the guerrillas,” Vargas said.

At the time of the filing of the lawsuit, attorney Lee-Anne Mulholland, now an in-house litigation attorney at Google, was at the helm of the Wilson Sonsini team. Several of the firm’s lawyers worked on the case over the years.

Liss got on the case in 2016 after surviving multiple dismissal requests, around the time that activities on the case started. He led the team, which included partner Leo Cunningham, associate Dylan G. Savage, and senior paralegal Stacy Love, into a robust discovery phase that took some of them on three separate fact-finding missions to Colombia.

It was and is a really wonderful partnership. … That is exactly what really successful and effective pro bono work can do.

Claret Vargas

Center for Justice and Accountability

Daniel McLaughlin, another senior attorney at CJA, was also heavily involved in the evidence gathering process in several Colombian cities. An important witness he deposed, Rev. Francisco de Roux, was a prominent Jesuit priest whom Naranjo once wanted to kill.

Robert Kerrigan of Kerrigan Estess Rankin McLeod & Thompson LLP, a Pensacola, Florida law firm serving Central and South America, served as the team’s local advisor.

Kerrigan, a prominent Florida litigator, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his role in the lawsuit.

Between 2017 and 2018, Liss and Savage interviewed several witnesses, including witnesses to the murder itself and people intimidated by Estrada’s killers.

However, members of the paramilitary group near Naranjo were elusive until the court successfully ordered the Colombian government to force them to testify.

In 2019, Liss and his colleagues deposed Rodrigo Perez Alzate, a senior paramilitary warlord, and Oscar Montealegre, an executor of the group. Vargas’ negotiating skills and his instinct with intercultural competence are vital to ensure that the main witnesses will show up to her testimony, Liss said.

“It was really interesting for us at Wilson Sonsini and CJA to drop people face to face – in Medellin with no security – who collectively admitted over 1,300 murders,” said Liss. “That was quite an experience, a little different from the normal statements we make. But we enjoyed it very much.”

Your statements gave momentum to the case. Under pressure from further inquiries, Naranjo stopped defending the case and his lawyers withdrew.

“We would never stop in this case until we got justice for Eduardo Estrada. I think they finally got that and then they stopped,” said Liss of Naranjo’s lawyers.

Maria A. Dominguez-Victoriano, Javier F. Micheo-Marcial, and Juan C. Ramos-Rosado, three partners at DMRA Law LLC who represented Naranjo, did not respond to requests for comments on the case.

Liss and his colleagues were unable to pursue their plan to remove Naranjo while he was in prison in Colombia and filed a motion for a provisional judgment that he had failed to comply with.

The request was served several times to Naranjo, but he never responded. Noting his defiance, Judge Torres entered the summary judgment against him and opened the door for Estrada’s family members to seek damages.

– Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.

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