{"id":302833,"date":"2026-07-22T13:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T13:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/302833\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T13:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T13:44:12","slug":"venezuelas-nicolas-maduro-back-in-nyc-court-for-pretrial-hearing-in-drug-trafficking-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/302833\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela&#8217;s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro back in NYC court for pretrial hearing in drug trafficking case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro will return to a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday and is expected to continue objecting to the U.S. military action that snatched the Venezuelan president from power and deposited him in New York to face <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/maduro-indicted-on-federal-drug-trafficking-and-weapons-charges\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">drug trafficking charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Maduro, 63, and his wife Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail ever since U.S. forces <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/venezuela-nicolas-maduro-cilia-flores-new-york-narco-terrorism\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">seized them<\/a> from their Caracas home in a stunning middle-of-the-night <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/how-us-captured-venezuela-nicolas-maduro-dan-caine-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">raid<\/a> and brought them to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/nicolas-maduro-arraignment-nyc-protests\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New York<\/a> in early January.<\/p>\n<p>Both have pleaded not guilty. They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>In a court filing Tuesday, the prosecution and defense say they plan to request a trial date at Wednesday&#8217;s noon hearing. They are proposing June 2027.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/trump-venezuela-nicolas-maduro-captured-transition\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">administration<\/a> has defended the raid as a &#8220;surgical law enforcement operation&#8221; in a criminal case first brought six years ago. Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,&#8221; he said in Spanish at his arraignment in January.<\/p>\n<p>Maduro&#8217;s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro&#8217;s &#8220;military abduction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The lawyers have said there are complex legal defenses that the court must address before a trial can begin.<\/p>\n<p>Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has yet to set a trial date.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicol\u00e1s Maduro will return to a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday and is expected to continue objecting to the U.S.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[303,153,397,2977,75,9,15862,56,63,65,64,8098,750,7318],"class_list":["post-302833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-crime","tag-donald-trump","tag-indictment","tag-kidnapping","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-prison","tag-trial","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}