MANHATTAN (CN) - Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro asked a New York federal judge on Thursday to toss the drug trafficking conspiracy case against him if the U.S. government does not remove Treasury sanctions that are preventing him from paying his defense team.
Maduro, 63, and his wife Cilia Flores were arrested in January after U.S. forces captured him during a deadly military strike on the presidential palace in Caracas.
Maduro pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in January, his first appearance before U.S. District Alvin Hellerstein, the 92-year-old Manhattan judge presiding over his case.
Since then, Maduro filed a motion to dismiss the United States' case altogether, claiming the Trump administration is blocking Venezuela's government from paying for the cost of Maduro's defense of narcotrafficking conspiracy charges in violation of his constitutional right to counsel.
Maduro's attorney Barry Pollack told Hellerstein on Thursday that the Venezuelan government is "someone other than the U.S. taxpayer standing willing, ready, and able to fund" the costs of Maduro's defense in the case but cannot due to sanctions put in place by The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury,
Pollack said Maduro has the "right to counsel of his choice - not just competent counsel - but the counsel of his choice, and the right to use untainted funds for that purpose."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Adam Wirshba said interests of "national security and foreign policy" support keeping the sanctions blocking Maduro's access to funds from the government of Venezuela.
"The purpose of the sanction is because the defendants are plundering the wealth of Venezuela," Wirshba said.
Hellerstein asked what remedy is available to him. "Can I order OFAC to give a specific license to release the funds?" he asked.
He ultimately reserved decision on the motion to dismiss but did concede he would not dismiss the case. He asked both sides how to implement a remedy on issue of the right to retained counsel, but said he's likely to find the right to counsel trumps the issues invoked by prosecutors.
A trial date has not yet been set.
Maduro has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
"I am innocent, I am not guilty, I am a decent man," Maduro said through a Spanish-language interpreter while entering pleas of not guilty to four federal criminal counts in January.
U.S. prosecutors unsealed a superseding indictment against Maduro and his wife in January 2026, accusing them of an international cocaine trafficking conspiracy that involved terrorist groups armed with machine guns.
"Nicolas Maduro Moros, the defendant, now sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government, that for decades has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking," prosecutors say in the indictment. "That drug trafficking has enriched and entrenched Venezuela's political and military elite."
Maduro has been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a notorious Bureau of Prison facilities that has recently held high-profile defendants including Sean "Diddy" Combs, Luigi Mangione, and Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: Courthouse News Service
