OAKLAND — A South San Francisco limo driver who died of COVID-19 contracted the virus after picking up Brazilian diplomats who were guests at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in Florida, according to a claim.
Pacific Workers’ of Oakland filed a worker’s compensation claim Thursday in Alameda County on behalf of the widow of Calixto Villanueva, who died of COVID-19 related illness on March 27. His stepson is actor Nico Santos, who stars in the NBC series “Superstore” and the film “Crazy Rich Asians.”
Villanueva picked up Brazilian diplomats from a private terminal at San Francisco International Airport on March 8, according to the claim. The diplomats had just flown into San Francisco from Palm Beach, Florida, where they had attended the U.S.-Brazilian Summit with Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago private estate.
It was widely reported at the time that several people at the event from the Brazilian contingent tested positive for the virus; Bolsonaro himself also tested positive.
Within days of the March 8 pick up, Villanueva became so ill he had to be taken to a hospital, where he was placed in the intensive care unit. His wife, Tita Santos, also became sick with COVID-19 and was too weak to communicate with her dying husband in his final days, according to Pacific Workers’.
Nico Santos has publicly spoken about his stepfather’s death on social media and in interviews. He called him “Tito Sonny,” and a kind, caring man who “always greeted strangers walking past him with a chipper ‘Good Morning!’ and a big smile.”
“The loss of my stepfather is devastating but what has gutted me is that this pandemic has kept my family apart,” Nico Santos wrote on Instagram on March 28. “We were unable to be with him during his last days. I can’t hold my mother as she mourns her husband. I can’t hug my brother as he contemplates a world without his father. I can’t wipe away the tears from my nephews’ eyes as they wonder why their Lolo Sonny isn’t here anymore.”
Bilal Kassem, the family’s attorney from Pacific Workers’, said in a statement that they are seeing more people infected from the front lines of the pandemic.
“The frontline and essential workers are getting hit much harder than anyone else in our community. We must do more to protect them and their families. This is simply a total failure of a system that is supposed to protect people,” Kassem said.
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