A federal judge in New York has refused to dismiss the narcoterrorism case against former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, leaving intact one of the most politically sensitive criminal prosecutions currently before a United States court.
At a hearing on 26 March, Judge Alvin Hellerstein declined to throw out the indictment, despite expressing doubts about the government’s position on whether Maduro and Flores may use Venezuelan state funds to pay for their defence.
The couple, who have pleaded not guilty, are being held in Brooklyn after their January transfer to the United States. Their lawyers had argued that the case should be dismissed because sanctions policy had, in effect, prevented them from securing counsel of their choice. The central complaint from the defence was that Washington was blocking access to public funds that would otherwise be available under Venezuelan law, while the defendants themselves said they lacked the private resources needed to finance a complex federal trial.
Hellerstein did not accept that argument as grounds for immediate dismissal. But he also did not endorse the prosecution’s position without reservation. According to multiple reports from the hearing, the judge questioned whether the United States could continue to justify blocking the funds on national security grounds while at the same time acknowledging changed political circumstances in Venezuela. Even so, he indicated that the sanctions issue did not, at least for now, invalidate the indictment itself. No trial date has yet been set.
The case is rooted in charges first unveiled by the US Department of Justice in March 2020, when Maduro and a group of current and former Venezuelan officials were accused of participating in a long-running narco-terrorism conspiracy involving the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The Justice Department alleged at the time that senior Venezuelan figures had worked with the guerrilla group over two decades and had sought to use cocaine shipments as a weapon to “flood” the United States. Maduro was accused of negotiating multi-ton shipments of FARC-produced cocaine and helping provide military-grade weapons to the group.
Under the charges outlined by the Justice Department, Maduro faces counts including narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, and weapons-related offences. The department said those charges carry severe penalties, including mandatory minimum prison terms and the possibility of life imprisonment if there were a conviction. Flores has also been named in the superseding indictment connected to the New York case.
The narco-terrorism count is particularly significant because it remains a relatively uncommon and legally demanding charge in federal court. Reuters reported this week that prosecutors must show not simply drug trafficking, but that the accused knew the conduct financially benefited a group engaged in activity regarded by the United States as terrorism. Legal specialists cited by Reuters said the law has had only limited trial success over the years, making the Maduro prosecution an important test of how expansively the statute can be used in a case combining organised crime, insurgent links and state power.
For Maduro’s defence team, however, the immediate issue is not only the indictment but the practical ability to contest it. Defence lawyer Barry Pollack has argued that court-appointed counsel would not be an adequate substitute in a case of this scale and political complexity. Prosecutors, by contrast, have maintained that the defendants are not entitled to finance their defence with Venezuelan public money, particularly given that Washington no longer recognises Maduro as the legitimate head of state. That dispute now sits at the centre of the pre-trial proceedings.
The hearing also unfolded against a broader political backdrop. Reports from New York described demonstrations both for and against Maduro outside the courthouse, underscoring how sharply views remain divided within the Venezuelan diaspora and beyond. At the same time, the case has become entangled with wider US policy towards Caracas, including questions of sanctions, diplomatic recognition and the legal status of Venezuelan state assets. Those issues may yet influence how the court handles the defence funding question, even though they did not persuade Hellerstein to end the prosecution.
For now, the practical outcome is clear. The indictment remains in force, Maduro and Flores remain in custody, and the court must still decide whether their lawyers can be paid from Venezuelan government funds or whether the defence will have to proceed on another basis. That means Thursday’s ruling was not a final determination on the most contested procedural question in the case. But it did establish one immediate point: the prosecution against Maduro and his wife will continue.
