Nicolás Maduro’s wife says she has lost two molars and more than 25 pounds in jail, but a federal judge denied her request for release Thursday.
Cilia Flores, the 69-year-old wife of the former Venezuelan leader, and her attorney argued that she should be allowed to move to home detention at a private residence in New York to receive proper medical treatment. She also cited a worsening heart condition that she said was aggravated by pepper spray used after a fight broke out in her housing unit.
Federal prosecutors argued that releasing Flores would pose an “extreme risk of flight and danger to the public,” adding that she could be taken to a local hospital for necessary treatment.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected her request.
“For whatever it’s worth, her appearance today is no worse and perhaps a little better than when I first met with her on her arraignment,” Hellerstein said in court, referring to her January 5 appearance after U.S. forces captured her.
Flores’s lawyer responded that she “was still bandaged up from the military invasion.”
On Thursday, Flores and her husband were charged with conspiring to commit torture against Americans. In one instance, prosecutors say an American citizen was detained in 2022 after entering Venezuela and was accused of conspiring to assassinate Maduro. While detained, the man was subjected to beatings and electric shocks to his arms, legs, and genitals, prosecutors allege. Both also face conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons charges, and Maduro faces an additional narcoterrorism charge.
Flores reportedly played an influential role in Maduro’s administration, serving as a key adviser behind the scenes. She is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to broker a meeting between a large-scale drug trafficker and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office.
Flores built a political career of her own by supporting Hugo Chávez following his failed 1992 coup. She visited Chávez in prison and offered her legal services to help secure his release. Chávez later led Venezuela until his death in 2013, when Maduro succeeded him.
Flores and Maduro met while campaigning for Chávez’s release. “During that struggle for Chávez’s release, we were involved in street activities,” she said in an interview. Recalling a meeting in Catia, she added, “When a young man asked to speak, he spoke, and I just stared at him.”
After Maduro and Flores married in 2013, he gave her the title “first combatant” rather than first lady. The couple have been detained since January, when U.S. forces captured them at their Caracas home in the middle of the night.
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