By Reuters April 25, 2026, 5:24:27 PM IST (Published)
The United States has agreed to tweak its sanctions on Venezuela so the Venezuelan government can pay legal fees for Nicolás Maduro’s defense team, a court filing showed on Friday, removing a hurdle that had threatened the drug trafficking prosecution of the ousted president.
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, were seized at their Caracas home by U.S. special forces on Jan. 3 and flown to New York to face criminal charges, including a narcoterrorism conspiracy count. They have pleaded not guilty and remain jailed in Brooklyn pending trial.
In February, Maduro’s attorney Barry Pollack asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan to dismiss the case, arguing that U.S. sanctions that barred payments from the Venezuelan government denied Maduro his constitutional right to counsel of choice. Pollack said neither Maduro nor Flores could afford defense counsel and that Caracas was prepared to cover the fees.
Hellerstein told attorneys at a March 26 hearing he did not plan to dismiss the case but expressed skepticism that the government was justified in blocking the payments. Prosecutor Kyle Wirshba countered that the sanctions served legitimate national security and foreign policy goals and argued the judiciary could not direct the Treasury Department to alter those measures because foreign policy falls to the executive branch.
The judge noted Washington had eased sanctions on Venezuela since Maduro’s ouster and that relations had improved after Delcy Rodriguez began leading the country on an interim basis. “The defendant is here, Flores is here. They present no further national security threat,” Hellerstein said. “The right that’s implicated, paramount over other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel.”
During his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump significantly increased sanctions on Caracas, accusing Maduro’s government of corruption and undermining democracy and calling the 2018 reelection fraudulent. Maduro has rejected those allegations and claims the accusations of drug trafficking are pretexts for U.S. efforts to seize Venezuela’s oil resources.
