{"id":87796,"date":"2026-01-02T23:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T23:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/87796\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T23:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T23:55:07","slug":"staten-island-resident-28-reportedly-among-americans-being-detained-in-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/87796\/","title":{"rendered":"Staten Island resident, 28, reportedly among Americans being detained in Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Luckey-Lange, 28, a Staten Island resident, is among a handful of Americans that have recently been detained by Venezuelan security forces, a U.S. official familiar with the matter reportedly told the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the official, while some of the detainees face legitimate criminal charges, Luckey-Lange is one of two imprisoned that the U.S. government may deem wrongfully detained, the report said.<\/p>\n

Among those reportedly arrested are three Venezuelan-American dual passport holders and two American citizens with no known ties to the country, the official told the New York Times.<\/p>\n

Luckey-Lange is the son of musician Diane Luckey, who went by the stage name Q Lazzarus. Luckey was particularly known for her 1988 hit song \u201cGoodbye Horses,\u201d an iconic tune from the Oscar-winning film \u201cSilence of the Lambs.\u201d Later in life, she worked as a Staten Island bus driver. Luckey died in 2022<\/a> at the age of 60.<\/p>\n

It was in the wake of his mother\u2019s death that Luckey-Lange set out on a trek through South America in 2022, according to a report by the New York Post<\/a>. His father passed away in 2025, as reported by the New York Times.<\/p>\n

In early December, Luckey-Lange reportedly told his aunt, Abbie Luckey, that he would finally return home and join his family for a Christmas cruise. He was prepared to leave from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas on Dec. 12, but that never came to be, the New York Post report stated.<\/p>\n

Abbie Luckey reportedly did not hear from her nephew and knew something was wrong when they returned from the cruise and still heard nothing. It was a New York Times reporter that informed Abbie Luckey that Luckey-Lange was in Venezuelan custody.<\/p>\n

As described by his aunt in the New York Post report, Luckey-Lange is a \u201cfree spirit\u201d who loved to travel and desired to see the Amazon rainforest with his own eyes.<\/p>\n

As reported by the New York Times, it is unclear if Luckey-Lange had a visa to enter Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Abbie Luckey has not been contacted by U.S. officials and is seeking any information on her nephew\u2019s whereabouts, according to the Dec. 31 report by the New York Times.<\/p>\n

The reported detainments by the Venezuelan government \u2014 overseen by Socialist President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro \u2014 come amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and the South American country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Maduro has detained Americans, whether guilty or innocent. At the start of his second term, President Donald Trump was able to secure the release of 17 American citizens and permanent residents held in Venezuela under Maduro\u2019s regime, according to the New York Times.<\/p>\n

The Advance\/SILive.com reached out to Rep. Nicole Malliotakis\u2019s office to learn if the congresswoman had heard of Luckey-Lange\u2019s detainment; however, the office was unable to respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Luckey-Lange, 28, a Staten Island resident, is among a handful of Americans that have recently been detained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-87796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87796","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=87796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}