NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- Nicolás Maduro had already spent more than 24 hours in one of the toughest US jails before he arrived in Manhattan Monday to face charges that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.
The ousted Venezuelan president arrived by helicopter to the heart of New York City on Monday morning ahead of a hearing set for 12 p.m. An official confirmed that Maduro was in the court building in Lower Manhattan shortly after.
He and his wife, Cilia Flores, joined the approximately 1,330 inmates at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Saturday following a surprise nighttime raid and odyssey that included a US warship, a plane and a helicopter.
A US indictment released on Saturday accused Maduro of playing a key role in a broad conspiracy over 25 years to traffic cocaine into the US. He and others are accused of partnering with groups including the Sinaloa Cartel and Tren de Aragua, which have been designated by the US as foreign terrorist organizations.
The hearing will be overseen by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, 92, a Bronx native appointed by Bill Clinton who has presided over cases tied to the Sept. 11 attacks and major financial fraud trials.
Bail is unlikely. The judge is expected to set an initial schedule for evidence exchanges and pretrial motions, with a trial not expected until at least 2027.
It is not clear if Maduro or his wife has hired a lawyer for the hearing. Sometimes defendants are represented by free lawyers from the Federal Defenders of New York for purposes of an initial court appearance.
Speaking in an interview on CNBC on Monday, Manhattan US attorney Jay Clayton said that he was fully comfortable with Maduro’s prosecution.
Brooklyn Jail
At his new temporary cell in at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Maduro has likely been held under the jail’s most restrictive conditions.
At MDC, high-risk detainees are typically placed in special housing, where confinement can stretch to 23 hours a day. Movement outside the cell is tightly controlled. Confinement in the MDC “will test the strongest mind,” said Justin Paperny, a prison consultant who has advised clients held at the facility.
Paperny cited staffing difficulties, training deficiencies and mental health issues among the prisoners as challenges to maintaining the jail.
Other complaints include rotten food, thin mattresses and filthy, broken toilets. Inmates can become disoriented and lose track of the time, with lights constantly on and no view of the outside, Paperny said.
A representative for the Bureau of Prisons didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Bureau of Prisons has said conditions at MDC in Brooklyn have improved, citing staffing increases and a reduced inmate population.
Paperny said Maduro’s communications will be closely monitored and his movements carefully managed, with security and physical safety taking precedence over comfort.
The MDC is the only federal jail in New York as the Bureau of Prisons closed Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2021 to address deteriorating conditions. Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in the MCC in 2019.
Since then, MDC has been a temporary home for high-profile inmates, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell and Luigi Mangione.
Sam Bankman-Fried was held in the jail before his 2023 conviction for fraud at his FTX cryptocurrency exchange. While there he said he befriended former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was found guilty in 2024 of conspiring to import cocaine into the US.
Hernandez was later transferred to serve a 45-year sentence in a prison in West Virginia. He was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump.
For years, the hulking concrete jail has drawn sharp criticism from judges, lawyers and watchdogs. In 2024, one judge bluntly dubbed the conditions at New York City’s only federal jail as “dreadful in many respects.” Another described them as “dangerous, barbaric.”
The Palace
By all accounts, the jail is a world away from the rarefied public existence Maduro and Flores had been living.
In Caracas, Maduro lived inside a sprawling military complex called Fort Tiuna.
Venezuela never made public exactly where Maduro resided within the military base and he’s shared little of his private living space on social media. But on one occasion followers caught a brief glimpse of a modest kitchen, where his wife was shown making coffee using a worn cloth.
Most of Maduro’s public life unfolded at Miraflores Palace, the presidential seat in downtown Caracas that occupies an entire city block.
At the palace, he hosted foreign leaders and athletes at the 19th century French neo-baroque mansion, which features a large central courtyard and ceremonial halls decorated with chandeliers, carpets and portraits of national heroes.