Judge sets June 1, 2027, for trial of Nicolás Maduro, wife

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday set a June 1, 2027, date for the narcoterrorism trial against the toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been in a Brooklyn federal jail since January, when U.S. military forces led a dramatic nighttime raid on the presidential palace in Caracas, grabbing the foreign leader to bring to New York to face a host of charges.

Federal prosecutors charge the former president, who was replaced by the then-vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, days later, led a vast narcotics trafficking enterprise that used the country’s military and bureaucracy to help smuggle cocaine and other drugs to the United States.

Maduro and his wife appeared at the noon hearing appearing thinner than during previous court appearances. The former president, wearing shaded glasses and tan prison scrubs, greeted his lawyers and then sat, taking notes while listening to an interpreter relay the proceedings through headphones.

The hearing lasted less then 20 minutes.

The former strongman coordinated with the Sinaloa cartel, Marxist terrorism group FARC and street gang Tren de Aragua to use violence and murder to enforce their drug trafficking network, according to the indictment.

Maduro faces one count of narcoterrorism conspiracy, and he and his wife face cocaine smuggling and weapons charges.

Both pleaded not guilty during their arraignment in January.

"I am innocent," he told U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein when asked to enter his plea. "I'm a decent man. I am president of my country."

Prosecutors said Maduro led a network, dubbed the Cartel of Suns, made up of high-ranking Venezuelan officials in the government and the military to provide FARC with military-grade weapons to keep brutal control over their drug trafficking operation, which spanned from South America through Central America and into the United States. He and his wife are accused of ordering beatings, kidnappings and the murder of a Caracas drug dealer, according to the indictment.

Defense attorney Barry Pollack, who also represented Martin Tankleff, a Long Island man cleared of killing his parents, has promised to fight the charges on behalf of Maduro.

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Maduro called himself a "prisoner of war."

The prosecution and defense have sketched out a schedule for pretrial motions that stretches from Sept. 2 to jury selection in June 2027.

So far, Maduro's legal team has not put forth a defense theory, although they said they will raise the issue of diplomatic immunity in future motions.

Under that political theory, leaders like Maduro cannot be prosecuted in foreign courts.

That approach has many obstacles before the charges can be dismissed.

In 2019, after Maduro declared victory in the presidential election, the country’s legislative body, the National Assembly, declared he had usurped power in an illegitimate election.

Maduro had not been recognized as the leader of Venezuela by the United States and 50 other countries after his last election, according to the indictment.

Last week, President Donald Trump, during a widely disputed speech about election fraud in the United States, said the CIA had found evidence of a plot to manipulate the vote through tampering with electronic voting machines.

Trump said "the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot by the Maduro regime in Venezuela to do exactly that — conspiring to digitally rig their own country’s elections in 2020."

The declassified report, however, noted it was unclear if that plot had been successful.

“[W]hile the intelligence validated significant concerns about foreign-linked voting technology vendors, it did not definitively confirm that large-scale electronic fraud was successfully executed in specific Venezuelan elections,” the report said.