American lawyer Barry Pollack, currently representing Nicolás Maduro, on Thursday asked a federal Judge to throw out the drug trafficking case against the deposed socialist dictator alleging the Trump administration is “blocking” the Venezuelan regime from paying Maduro’s legal fees.
Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are presently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after U.S. forces arrested the couple in a January law enforcement operation in Caracas. Maduro pleaded “not guilty” to the charges.
Pollack, known for having represented Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the past, is representing Maduro and Flores. On Wednesday he filed a letter addressed to New York District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in which he wrote that the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is “blocking” the Venezuelan socialist regime from paying Maduro’s legal fees. He alleged to the judge that “Under Venezuelan law and custom, the government of Venezuela pays the expenses of the President and First Lady.”
A day later, on Thursday, Pollack reportedly filed a new letter to Judge Hellerstein asking him to overthrow Maduro’s drug trafficking case under grounds that the Trump administration is allegedly violating Maduro’s Sixth Amendment and due process rights and “interfering” with his defense by purportedly blocking the Venezuelan regime from paying the legal fees.
“Mr. Maduro, as Venezuela’s head of state, has both a right and an expectation to have legal fees associated with these charges funded by the government of Venezuela,” Pollack wrote as per The Washington Post.
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The lawyer’s new request reportedly included a declaration from Nicolás Maduro in which the deposed dictator said he understood that he is “entitled to have the government of Venezuela pay for my legal defense.” The left-wing propaganda network Telesur published a purported copy of Maduro’s statement in which the deposed dictator claimed that Pollack is his “lawyer of choice” and wants “Mr. Pollack to be able to continue to represent me.”
Barry Pollack said that, if the judge leaves the charges against Maduro in place, he wants to resign from so the court can appoint other council to represent Maduro.
“Not only would the Court need to appoint counsel and foist the cost of Mr. Maduro’s defense on the United States taxpayers, despite the willingness and obligation of the government of Venezuela to pay Mr. Maduro’s defense costs, but also any verdict against Mr. Maduro would be constitutionally suspect,” Pollack reportedly wrote.
The Venezuelan socialist regime, currently led by “acting President” Delcy Rodríguez, has not publicly commented on the situation at press time.
“The United States government, even while authorizing myriad commercial transactions with Venezuela, is prohibiting counsel from receiving untainted funds from the government of Venezuela, despite Venezuela’s obligation to fund Mr. Maduro’s defense,” Pollack reportedly argued in the letter.
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