{"id":90461,"date":"2026-01-05T23:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T23:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/90461\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T23:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T23:30:11","slug":"venezuelans-weep-with-joy-outside-manhattan-federal-as-deposed-dictator-arraigned-on-narco-terror-charges-amnewyork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/90461\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuelans weep with joy outside Manhattan federal as deposed dictator arraigned on narco-terror charges \u2013 amNewYork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Venezuelan\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Venezuelans wept with joy outside Manhattan Federal Court on Jan. 5, 2026 as deposed dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was arraigned on narco-terrorism charges.<\/p>\n

Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

Venezuelan New Yorkers clung to their country\u2019s flag outside of federal court<\/a> in Lower Manhattan<\/a> on Monday afternoon and wept with joy as deposed President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was arraigned on narco-terror charges.<\/a><\/p>\n

Standing just across the street from 500 Pearl St., where Maduro professed his innocence and pleaded not guilty to narcotics trafficking, his people sang, smiled, and cried as the man they say made them flee their homeland was brought to justice.<\/p>\n

Though some decried President Donald Trump for sending military forces into the Caribbean to forcibly remove Maduro and his wife in a hail of gunfire and dropped bombs early on Saturday morning, Venezuelans themselves were applauding the act on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the right thing, because it\u2019s the only thing. It\u2019s the only way to take off Maduro. We tried elections, we tried protests, and neither worked. So, this is the only way to make justice,\u201d Miguel Martinez said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A white van carrying rifle-touting soldiers rode ahead of Maduro, all the while, one Venezuelan man spotted the motorcade and screamed at his former leader as he passed.Photo by Dean Moses \"\"Venezuelan natives crammed togetherPhoto by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

Venezuelan natives crammed together outside the court, many poring over their cellphones in a desperate attempt to get updates about the arraignment. Others screamed and hollered at the courthouse with pride over their leader\u2019s removal from office and prosecution.<\/p>\n

Will Contreres was among them. He shared that he moved to America in the 1990s and expressed gratitude for Maduro\u2019s capture.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the United States did in my country was great, it was fantastic. The guy in there is not our president,\u201d said Contreres, referring to the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, which Maduro claimed to won even though multiple observers indicated his opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez, won the \u201cfree not fair\u201d election. Maduro had the results invalidated through a supreme court full of favorable appointees, cracked down on dissent, and clung to power over the will of the Venezuelan voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaduro is just a guy. I hope he gets sentenced to a lot of years,\u201d Contreres added. \u201cI have been living in the United States for 30 years, but my people are still there, my family is still there. My country is rich with oil but we don\u2019t get nothing. I thank Donald Trump. I thank the United States for the wonderful work that they did. I don\u2019t care what the other people say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Venezuelans cursed their president.Photo by Dean Moses \"\"Venezuelans celebrated.Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

However, just a few feet away, separated by NYPD officers and metal barriers, other protesters condemned the arrest of Maduro and brandished signs demanding his release.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is lying. Is this not the first time that they\u2019ve told a lot of lies about Venezuela? He actually called Venezuelan resources \u2018our oil.\u2019 He said that. And so this is about him and his Wall Street backers wanting Venezuela to kneel and to bow down and to open up their doors for the extraction of oil and resources from Venezuela,\u201d Sydney Loving said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about his political agenda, and that\u2019s just a cover story that is very weak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Maduro\u2019s arraignment \u2014 during which he proclaimed himself to still be the rightful leader of Venezuela \u2014 the fallen president was ushered into an armored vehicle and sped out of the rear of the courthouse in a heavily armed convoy.<\/p>\n

A white van carrying rifle-touting soldiers rode ahead of Maduro, all the while, one Venezuelan man spotted the motorcade and screamed at his former leader as he passed.\n<\/p>\n

\"\"A white van carrying rifle-touting soldiers rode ahead of Maduro, all the while, one Venezuelan man spotted the motorcade and screamed at his former leader as he passed.Photo by Dean Moses \"\"the fallen president was ushered into an armored vehicle and sped out of the rear of the courthouse in a heavily armed convoy.Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venezuelans wept with joy outside Manhattan Federal Court on Jan. 5, 2026 as deposed dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,15862,63,6986,42400],"class_list":["post-90461","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-protest","tag-venezuelans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90461","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=90461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}