TAMPA, Fla. — A federal judge ordered the release Wednesday of a former U.S. Green Beret indicted in connection with a failed 2020 coup attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, rejecting arguments he would flee while awaiting trial on weapons smuggling charges.
Jordan Goudreau was arrested in July after a four-year investigation into the amphibious raid that ended with several combatants killed by Venezuelan security forces and two of his U.S. Special Forces buddies locked away in a Maduro government prison.
The plot, exposed by The Associated Press two days before the incursion, was carried out by a ragtag group of Venezuelan army deserters whom Goudreau allegedly helped arm and train in neighboring Colombia.
Goudreau immediately claimed responsibility for Operation Gideon — or Bay of Piglets as the bloody fiasco came to be known — but said he was acting in concert with Venezuela’s opposition to protect democracy.
“If I were put in his shoes, I would’ve gotten out of Dodge way before an indictment,” Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington said in ordering Goudreau’s release pending the scheduled start of his trial next month.
Goudreau, shackled at the legs in orange prison garb, responded “negative” several times when asked in court whether he had ever been diagnosed with mental illnesses that would make him a risk to himself and others upon release.
Although the 48-year-old has no criminal record and was a…
