Venezuela Releases U.S. Filmmaker Arrested for Espionage

The Venezuelan government has released a U.S. filmmaker who was incarcerated for alleged espionage in the South American country for more than a month, the Associated Press reported.

35-year-old Timothy Tracy had been reportedly filming a documentary film about the nation's politics since October 2012. When he tried to fly to Detroit on April 24 for his father's 80 birthday, he couldn't make it past the gate at Caracas airport. He was arrested under suspicions of conspiracy.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez also accused Tracy of sliding cash to student opposition groups, in efforts to sidestep the federal presidential republic.

After being jailed for more than a month, Tracy was expelled from Venezuela and returned home to the United States on a flight bound for Miami, Wednesday.

According to AP, Tracy's family hired former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt as an attorney for the case. Delahunt has made Venezuela his country of focus, working to improve the largely uneasy ties between the U.S. and the South American nation.

"[Delahunt has] been informally advising us since pretty much the onset and we retained him last week," Tiffany Klaasen, Tracy's sister, told AP.

The U.S. government mocked the notion that Tracy was a spy, sent to do espionage in a foreign country. President Barack Obama called the allegations "ridiculous."

In reality, his friends and family claimed, he was working on a documentary about the human toll that Venezuela's converse culture and political division takes.

"He literally has no political agenda," friend Aengus James told AP. "He is very sympathetic to all sides."

The day after Tracy was expelled from the country, Secretary of State John Kerry had a meeting with the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Elias Jaua. The two members of government discussed improving relations between ambassadors.

Kerry said he hoped to, "begin to change the dialogue between our countries and hopefully quickly move," to put ambassadors in each other's countries, which hasn't occurred in three years.