TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge in Tampa has ordered the arrest of a former Green Beret accused of plotting to invade Venezuela in 2020 after he failed to show up to court for a hearing on whether he should be taken back into custody for violating the conditions of his pre-trial release.
Jordan Goudreau, 49, was arrested last year on weapons smuggling charges tied to the failed coup attempt undertaken during the first Trump administration.
He was
released after a few weeks in jail when filmmaker Jen Gatien pledged her $2 million Manhattan apartment where the combat veteran was living as collateral for a bond. In testimony this week, Gatien detailed how the three-time Bronze Star recipient turned abusive, alleging he threatened to harm her and others and sent text messages saying he wouldn't go back to jail.
“I believe he intends one day to leave this country,” Gatien said, noting that Goudreau previously lived on a sailboat in Mexico.
Judge Christopher Tuite issued an arrest warrant Friday after waiting 30 minutes for Goudreau to show up for the third day of the bond hearing. A probation officer said the ankle monitor Goudreau was supposed to wear was still located in the Tampa area, where Goudreau was living while undergoing equine-assisted therapy supervised by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I'm at a loss,” Goudreau's attorney Marissel Descalzo told the judge. “I have not spoken to him as to why he's not here.”
Gatien's new documentary, “Men of War,” is a largely sympathetic look at Goudreau’s slapdash plan to train a mercenary force of Venezuelan army deserters in neighboring Colombia to carry out a cross-border raid that aimed to spark a popular rebellion and remove President Nicolas Maduro.
The plot, exposed by The Associated Press two days before the incursion, never stood a chance against Maduro's far superior security forces and ended with several would-be freedom fighters killed and two of Goudreau's U.S. Special Forces buddies locked away in a Venezuelan prison.
Since the movie's release last month, the relationship between the two has soured and in the weeks leading up to the bond hearing the filmmaker in court filings accused Goudreau of deceit, financial coercion and threatening conduct.
Specifically, Gatien accused Goudreau of reneging on a promise — described by prosecutors as an “undisclosed side agreement” — to pledge his sizable reserves of cash, gold coins and cryptocurrency to mitigate the filmmaker's financial risk as his sole bond guarantor.
She also shared with the court screenshots of angry text messages, sometimes incoherent and full of profanity, in which he claims “I'm not going back to prison" — a statement prosecutors say indicates his intention to flee.
“I would have gotten zero if he fled," Gatien testified. "All I got was broken promises for the past year.”
Among those scheduled to testify at the hearing for the government was an Oklahoma couple which was storing some of Goudreau's belongings, including two assault rifles an associate recently tried to retrieve in possible violation of a court order against possessing firearms while on bond.
In a sworn affidavit, Brande and Jason Woolems explained that Goudreau had called them last month pressuring them to make false accusations against Gatien to block her from backing out of the bond.
The couple said in their sworn statement that Goudreau asked them to sign statements that accused Gatien of misconduct.
“When we declined, he called us ‘Judas’ and accused us of betrayal, yelling repeatedly in anger,” they said in the statement.
The 2020 invasion, which came to be known as the Bay of Piglets, stands as a cautionary tale of the often amateurish way the Trump administration has pursued regime change in Venezuela.
Those criticisms have grown stronger in recent weeks as a naval flotilla deployed by Trump has carried out multiple deadly strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats departing Venezuela and the president authorized the CIA to carry out covert actions inside the South American country.
Amid growing concern about a potential U.S. invasion, Goudreau has reemerged as a media pundit popular with Trump supporters and “radical leftist” critics alike.
In recent interviews, Goudreau has at times lashed out at an array of purported deep-state actors — the CIA and State Department among them — that he blames for “sabotaging” his clandestine mission, which he insists was blessed with a wink from the first Trump administration.
Many of those same actors are once again trying to derail Trump's foreign policy agenda, he said. Meanwhile, he called Trump's allegations that Maduro is the leader of the so-called Suns Cartel of drug-running military officials a “fabrication of the CIA.”
“If we do invade Venezuela what's next?" he recently told Russian state-owned RT. "The truth of the matter is the Venezuelan opposition is as ruthless and tyrannical as the Venezuelan regime under Nicolas Maduro.”
Goudreau, who was born in Canada, said he became a believer in the cause of Venezuelan democracy after working security at a benefit concert held in Colombia to deliver humanitarian aid across the border.
Despite a lack of Spanish, he drew close to several exiled allies of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who the U.S. then recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. Over several months, a plan was hatched to invade Venezuela with the goal of sparking a popular rebellion. As part of that effort, Goudreau signed a contract with the Guaidó team, although the two sides split months before the raid was carried out under new leadership possibly infiltrated by Maduro's intelligence services.
Goudreau was scheduled to go on trial in February on charges of failing to obtain an export license to ship roughly 60 AR-15 rifles to clandestine camps where would-be freedom fighters were being trained.
Two of the rifles seized in Colombia contain traces of Goudreau’s DNA, while suppressors, night-vision goggles and other equipment had serial numbers matching those purchased by Goudreau and his Melbourne, Florida-based security firm Silvercorp, according to prosecutors.
Gatien registered a Florida production company with Goudreau in 2021 and was described in court records as his girlfriend. In testimony Gatien denied being anything more than good friends with Goudreau, who lived with her for two years while attending the New York Film Academy.
