Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores tortured US citizens jailed in the South American country — including one dissident who was waterboarded and another who was given an “electric shock to his testicles,” Manhattan federal prosecutors alleged Thursday.
The toppled dictator, 63, and his 69-year-old spouse ran a terrifying “system of repression that relied on violence against political opposition, arbitrary detention, and the torture of detainees, including United States citizens,” an explosive new indictment claims.
A courtroom sketch of Cilia Flores at an appearance in Manhattan federal court on Oct. 8, 2026. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are escorted by heavily armed Federal agents in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad as they make their way into an armored car en route to a Federal courthouse, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in New York. GC Images
“That torture included electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture, such as threats to harm and kill victims’ families, including children,” the court papers alleged.
One US citizen detained in Venezuela in 2022 — after being falsely accused by the Maduro regime of plotting to kill the despot — was starved, electrically shocked in his “arms, legs and genitals,” waterboarded, repeatedly beaten and injected with a substance that caused him to have seizures, the indictment claims.
The tortured prisoner was eventually released back to the US after spending nearly nine months in a Caracas jail, according to the court papers.
A separate US citizen visiting his family in Venezuela was abducted in August 2023 by a Maduro-backed police force that “electrocuted his testicles,” stuck a gun in his mouth and “told him to say goodbye to everyone he knew,” the indictment alleges. The victim was eventually sent back to the US in a prisoner swap, according to prosecutors.
President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores hold hands and pose for photos after a swearing-in ceremony at Palacio Federal Legislativo in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. Getty Images
In another chilling example, the brutal tyrant allegedly ordered that a judge’s family be tortured — with one relative getting locked in a cold room known as the “freezer.” The judge, who had been tasked with deciding whether to allow a political rival of Maduro’s to appear on an election ballot in 2022, eventually relented and blocked the candidate, the indictment said.
Maduro and Flores — who had already faced up to life in prison on separate drug trafficking charges — were hit with a new rap of conspiracy to commit torture during the dictator’s decades-long reign.
Manhattan US Attorney Jamie McDonald revealed the new charges minutes before a hearing where a judge denied Flores’ bid to be placed under house arrest pending the couple’s summer 2027 trial.
Pro-Maduro protesters calling for Cilia Flores to be released from prison outside of her hearing on Oct. 8, 2026. OLGA FEDOROVA/EPA/Shutterstock
US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein instead ordered that she stay detained, citing the seriousness of the charges and the risk that Venezuela’s former first lady could flee back to her home country, which lacks an extradition agreement with the US.
“Jail is not a nice place to be, but these are serious allegations… The government talks about having cooperative witnesses against her,” the judge said as Flores, her blonde hair slicked back into a ponytail, watched from the defense table in a dark grey jail-issued jumpsuit.
“I don’t think the conditions are there to release her at this time,” the judge said.
Maduro and his wife were initially charged with narcoterrorism conspiracy after the US military captured them in a daring late-night Jan.3 raid on the presidential compound in Caracas.
They have pleaded not guilty and are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Neither has entered a formal plea yet on the newly unsealed charges, though Maduro’s lawyer said he rejects the new allegations.
“President Maduro denies the charges in the new indictment and looks forward to his day in court,” the jailed strongman’s attorney Barry Pollack told The Post outside the courthouse.
— Additional reporting by Amber Roldan