Federal prosecutors in Manhattan added a torture conspiracy charge on Thursday to their case against Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, unsealing a superseding indictment that accuses the deposed Venezuelan president and his wife of overseeing a system of repression in which political opponents and detained U.S. citizens were beaten, electrocuted and sexually assaulted.
The charging document became public ahead of a hearing on Flores's bid for pretrial release, and Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is presiding over the case, turned the request down. "Jail is not a nice place to be, but these are serious allegations," Hellerstein said. "I don't think the conditions are there to release her."
Maduro was not in the courtroom Thursday. "President Maduro denies the charges in the new indictment and looks forward to his day in court," his attorney, Barry Pollack, said. He and Flores pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges and are being held without bail. In a filing last month, Maduro's defense argued that he cannot be prosecuted because he was a sovereign nation's head of state when the alleged conduct took place, and his lawyers are also contesting the legality of his arrest. Prosecutors say Venezuela's government has not joined the immunity claim.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, are now charged with narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to commit torture and conspiracy to import cocaine, along with two weapons counts involving machine guns and destructive devices. The torture count carries a maximum of 20 years in prison, while the narcoterrorism count carries a 20-year mandatory minimum and a possible life term.
Prosecutors say the couple's grip on the armed forces, the courts and the police made the abuse possible, along with alliances with criminal organizations that included state-backed gangs known as colectivos. The indictment lists electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, starvation, prolonged isolation and threats to kill victims' relatives among the methods used. It accuses Maduro of ordering opponents jailed and tortured, keeping track of interrogations through regular updates and urging officials to make the abuse worse. Briefed on one defiant prisoner, he allegedly told officials to "squeeze them harder."
Flores is accused of helping to build that apparatus and of ordering people tortured to shield her relatives' illegal activities. Amid political unrest in 2014, the indictment says, Maduro proposed seizing five to seven military officers whose loyalty was in doubt and torturing them to extract information, a plan Flores allegedly endorsed.
Several of the alleged victims are U.S. citizens, and the case stems in part from what Washington has called the wrongful detention in Venezuela of more than a dozen Americans. One, referred to in the indictment as Victim-8, was visiting relatives when officers attacked him from behind, and he was later shocked with electricity while being moved from a hospital to a prison, prosecutors allege. At one point a captor told him he was alive only because, as an American, he "could be useful in a prisoner exchange with the United States," the indictment says. Another American, detained after Maduro claimed victory in a 2024 election the United States called a sham, was beaten for two days and left with a permanent eye injury, according to the indictment. He was released on Jan. 15, about two weeks after Maduro was removed from power, and he and other Americans had been told to keep quiet about any abuse by the Venezuelan government.
"The members of Maduro's broad conspiracy were not just sitting behind a desk," U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said at a news conference after the hearing. "These members of the conspiracy were holding the shovel. American citizens were tortured, and so were thousands of Venezuelans." In a Justice Department statement, Attorney General Todd Blanche said the added charges "reflect the dedication of this Administration to delivering justice for the victims of torture, narcoterrorism, and organized crime."
At the hearing, Flores's lawyers proposed house arrest under 24-hour private security, citing heart trouble and other health problems. Hellerstein was unconvinced. He noted that she had declined a cardiac catheterization and said her access to money and her ties to people in the Venezuelan government made her a serious flight risk. "There's no combination that will make it less serious a risk," he said. Prosecutors opposed her release and told the court that witnesses "who were in the room" would testify about the torture she is accused of plotting with her husband.
Flores still has to be arraigned on the torture count. Her lawyer asked for more time because the defense had received the indictment only that morning, and the judge agreed. Hellerstein said he would post the date on the docket, and Maduro's arraignment on the new charges will also come at a later date.
U.S. forces seized the couple in Caracas in January and brought them to New York. President Trump has defended the raid as a "surgical law enforcement operation," though it drew widespread international outrage. The prosecution traces to March 2020, when Maduro was among 15 people first indicted in the Southern District of New York during Trump's first term. The Justice Department said the case falls under the Homeland Security Task Force initiative that Trump created by executive order, and it noted that an indictment is only an allegation and that both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.