{"id":368518,"date":"2026-10-09T02:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T02:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368518\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T02:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T02:59:09","slug":"ex-venezuela-dictator-nicolas-maduro-wife-allegedly-conspired-to-torture-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368518\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Venezuela dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, wife allegedly conspired to torture Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> and his wife Cilia Flores<\/a>\u00a0tortured US citizens jailed in the South American country \u2014 including one dissident who was waterboarded and another who was given an \u201celectric shock to his testicles,\u201d Manhattan federal prosecutors alleged Thursday.<\/p>\n

The toppled dictator, 63, and his 69-year-old spouse ran a terrifying \u201csystem of repression that relied on violence against political opposition, arbitrary detention, and the torture of detainees, including United States citizens,\u201d an explosive new indictment claims.<\/p>\n

A courtroom sketch of Cilia Flores at an appearance in Manhattan federal court on Oct. 8, 2026. REUTERS\/Jane Rosenberg<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\u201cThat torture included electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture, such as threats to harm and kill victims\u2019 families, including children,\u201d the court papers alleged.<\/p>\n

One US citizen detained in Venezuela in 2022 \u2014 after being falsely accused by the Maduro regime of plotting to kill the despot \u2014 was starved, electrically shocked in his \u201carms, legs and genitals,\u201d waterboarded, repeatedly beaten and injected with a substance that caused him to have seizures, the indictment claims.<\/p>\n

The tortured prisoner was eventually released back to the US after spending nearly nine months in a Caracas jail, according to the court papers.<\/p>\n

A separate US citizen\u00a0visiting his family in Venezuela\u00a0was abducted in August 2023 by a Maduro-backed police force that \u201celectrocuted his testicles,\u201d stuck a gun in his mouth and \u201ctold him to say goodbye to everyone he knew,\u201d the indictment alleges. The victim was eventually sent back to the US in a prisoner swap, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

In another chilling example, the brutal tyrant allegedly ordered that a judge\u2019s family be tortured \u2014 with one relative getting locked in a cold room known as the \u201cfreezer.\u201d The judge, who had been tasked with deciding whether to allow a political rival of Maduro\u2019s to appear on an election ballot in 2022, eventually relented and blocked the candidate, the indictment said.<\/p>\n

Maduro and Flores \u2014 who had already faced up to life in prison on separate drug trafficking\u00a0charges \u2014 were hit with a new rap of\u00a0conspiracy to commit torture during the dictator\u2019s decades-long reign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Manhattan US Attorney Jamie McDonald revealed the new charges\u00a0minutes before a hearing where a judge denied Flores\u2019 bid to be placed\u00a0under house arrest pending the couple\u2019s summer 2027 trial.<\/p>\n

Pro-Maduro protesters calling for Cilia Flores to be released from prison outside of her hearing on Oct. 8, 2026. OLGA FEDOROVA\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein instead ordered that she stay detained,\u00a0citing the seriousness of the charges and the risk that Venezuela\u2019s former first lady could flee back to her home country, which lacks an extradition agreement with the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cJail is not a nice place to be, but these are serious allegations\u2026 The government talks about having cooperative witnesses against her,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the conditions are there to release her at this time,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s lawyer said he rejects the new allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Maduro denies the charges in the new indictment and looks forward to his day in court,\u201d the jailed strongman\u2019s attorney Barry Pollack told The Post outside the courthouse.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Additional reporting by Amber Roldan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores\u00a0tortured US citizens jailed in the South American country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,15862,63,19170,58,7318],"class_list":["post-368518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-nyc","tag-torture","tag-us-news","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368518","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=368518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}