Overview
- Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in a New York federal court to U.S. narcotics and weapons charges and remain detained pending further hearings reported for March.
- Maduro was captured in Caracas in early January, transferred into U.S. custody, and placed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn under federal oversight.
- MDC Brooklyn is the only operational federal detention facility in New York since Manhattan’s federal jail closed in 2021, with official figures citing more than 1,300 detainees in a complex built for about 1,000 and staffing levels around 55%.
- Attorneys and past reviews describe harsh conditions at the facility, including restrictive housing that can hold detainees alone for up to 23 hours, limited medical access, and a history of outages, violence, and federal investigations.
- Police and media reports say rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was admitted to the same jail on January 6, with no confirmation of any contact with Maduro, in a facility known for housing high-profile defendants such as Ghislaine Maxwell and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.