Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are reportedly awaiting their first court appearance at a Brooklyn jail famous for its poor conditions.
Numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, have reported that the pair were escorted to the Metropolitan Detention Center late Saturday after arriving by plane in New York.
MDC, which has yet to confirm the transfer to Business Insider, has been home to numerous high-profile defendants facing trial in New York City, including music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of fallen bitcoin exchange FTX, and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of aiding the sex trafficking operation of the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Luigi Mangioni has been housed at MDC while awaiting trial for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He has pleaded not guilty.
The jail has been widely criticized over the years for its poor conditions, having been described as “inhumane” and “hell on earth.”
Last year, the Legal Aid Society issued a press release lamenting the jail’s “documented history of violence, medical neglect, and human and civil rights violations.” It cited reports of no heat during the winter and “maggot-infested food.”
In 2024, a federal judge in Brooklyn made headlines when he carved out a special exemption during sentencing to help a defendant avoid the MDC. The judge ruled that if the 74-year-old, convicted of tax fraud, were assigned to the MDC, he could serve his time under house arrest, The New York Times reported.
In March, Brooklyn federal prosecutors announced charges against 25 defendants in 12 separate cases tied to violence and contraband smuggling at the jail, which is located in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
“Over the years, MDC has become synonymous with egregious neglect and abuse with the people incarcerated,” the Legal Aid Society said in a June press release opposing ICE detentions at the jail.
President Donald Trump shocked the world on Saturday when he announced that the US had captured the Venezuelan president and his wife after a “large-scale strike” on Venezuela.
Trump has said the US is “going to run the country” until it can facilitate a safe transition of power, and that US oil companies will now be free to “spend billions” on development in the South American nation.
Maduro has been in the US Department of Justice’s crosshairs for years, and in 2020, Manhattan federal prosecutors indicted him as a leader of the Cartel de Las Soles, its name for the alleged drug-trafficking organization run by Venezuela’s military and political elite.
An expanded indictment unsealed on Saturday added as defendants Maduro’s wife and son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, identified in the indictment as “The Prince.” It accused them of participating in a wide-ranging effort to traffic drugs to the US to enrich themselves.
