Federal prosecutors in New York on Thursday, October 8, charged ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife with a torture conspiracy that, the FBI says, reached more than a dozen American citizens.
Story Snapshot
- The new count is conspiracy to commit torture, which means prosecutors say Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, worked with others to have prisoners tortured to keep their hold on power.
- Prosecutors say Americans held by the Venezuelan government were among the victims, subjected to electric shocks, near-drowning, beatings and drug injections.
- FBI Director Kash Patel said the couple “will now answer for their crimes.”
- Maduro’s lawyers did not immediately respond to the new charge. Flores was not asked to plead to it, and a judge denied her request to leave jail.
- Both pleaded not guilty in January to drug and weapons charges. Their trial is set for June 1, 2027.
What the New Charge Says
The torture count came in a 30-page superseding indictment filed in Manhattan federal court. A superseding indictment is a new, revised set of charging papers that replaces the old one and can add charges. The indictment says Maduro “authorized the use of torture against specific individuals and oversaw a system designed to use torture” against people who stood in his way.
Maduro ruled Venezuela for 13 years. Flores, 69, served as the country’s attorney general and led its National Assembly before she became first lady. Prosecutors say she helped build the system of repression, and in 2014 agreed to his proposal to seize and torture five to seven military officers he suspected of disloyalty. During one briefing about a defiant prisoner, prosecutors say, Maduro told officials to “squeeze them harder.”
The Defense and a Jail Ruling
Flores appeared in Manhattan federal court on Thursday. Her lawyer, Mark Donnelly, asked to delay her plea on the new count because the indictment had arrived that morning, and the judge agreed. Donnelly said he had not had time to review the new charges with her. Her lawyers asked that she be released to a home near New York City with round-the-clock private security so she could have a heart procedure, and said she “is not a danger to the community.”
Prosecutors said she posed an “extreme” risk of fleeing and a danger to the public, including possible pressure on witnesses. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who oversees the case, kept her in jail. “The evidence is strong, very strong,” the judge said, according to reports. Maduro did not appear in court. In a September filing, his lawyers argued he cannot be prosecuted because he was a head of state.
Americans Among the Victims
“As alleged in the indictment, the Maduro regime subjected over a dozen American citizens to torture,” Patel said. One American, detained in 2022 while entering Venezuela and accused of plotting to kill Maduro, was beaten and shocked on his arms and legs, the indictment says. Prosecutors also describe an American arrested in 2022 who was given injections that caused seizures.
A U.S. citizen detained in 2023 was beaten by intelligence officers, prosecutors say, and the officers said they kept him alive because his citizenship made him useful in a possible prisoner swap with the United States. The indictment also says that in 2013 Maduro ordered the arrest of a Venezuelan military officer he suspected of planning a coup, and that officers shocked the man with a live electric wire about 20 times and hung him by his hands and feet.
How the Couple Landed in a New York Jail
U.S. forces seized Maduro, 63, and Flores at their home in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, in a military raid on January 3, 2026. They first appeared in Manhattan federal court on January 5 and pleaded not guilty to drug and weapons charges. Those charges include narco-terrorism conspiracy, which means trafficking drugs in a way that helps a terrorist group. Maduro and 14 others were first indicted in that court in March 2020.
Both are held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. No date has been set for their plea on the torture count. An indictment is an accusation, not a conviction, and both are presumed innocent unless a jury finds otherwise.
Sources:
fortune.com, cbsnews.com, scrippsnews.com, democrata.es, edition.cnn.com, riotimesonline.com
