A group of Venezuelans displayed an effigy of deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro outside a federal court in Manhattan while the dictator and his wife Cilia Flores attended a Thursday hearing in the ongoing drug trafficking case.
American and Venezuelan journalists published footage of the group, who gathered outside the court before the hearing began close to noon (EST), singing the national anthem, holding banners and flags, and chanting insults and slogans against Maduro while a nearby crowd of leftists — including members of Code Pink — expressed support for the deposed dictator.
Hours before the hearing, Venezuelan artist Jorge Torrealba displayed a three-meter effigy of Maduro, handcuffed, and wearing an orange jumpsuit. Speaking to CNN, Torrealba said that he collected scrap materials and spent two days assembling the figure, using broom bristles for the dictator’s mustache.
“It’s a way to leave a record of this historic moment,” Torrealba told CNN.
Maduro and Flores returned to a federal court in Manhattan on Thursday morning for a new hearing in the ongoing drug trafficking case against the pair, marking their first appearance before the court after their arraignments on January 5 — two days after Maduro and Flores were arrested in Caracas by U.S. forces through a law enforcement operation authorized by President Donald Trump. Maduro, who for years was actively wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges, pleaded “not guilty” to the charges during his arraignment in January.
Janette Panzenbeck, a 59-year-old translator from Venezuela who has lived in Manhattan for 30 years, praised President Trump for authorizing the operation in remarks to the New York Post while waving a Venezuelan flag at the gathering.
“I actually have a lot of respect for President Trump. I like him, what he’s doing in Venezuela, and even in Iran because it’s a regime of 47 years where they have executed their own people,” she said.
“Venezuela is different from that, but people are just very happy and call him Uncle Trump,” she continued, claiming that if asked, “85-95 percent” of people in the South American nation are “so happy” Maduro is gone.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing the drug trafficking case against Venezuela’s deposed socialist dictator, said during the hearing that he will not dismiss the case against Maduro and Flores after their legal team moved for dismissal over a legal fee dispute. Over the past weeks, Maduro’s legal team — lawyers Barry Pollack and Mark Donelly — have submitted requests to Judge Hellerstein seeking to have the drug trafficking case dismissed on the grounds that the U.S. government is allegedly “blocking” the Venezuelan state from paying Maduro’s legal fees. In signed statements presented by the lawyers, Maduro and Flores have claimed that they do not have the funds to pay for their legal counsel.
Thursday’s hearing, which reportedly lasted about an hour, was mainly centered on addressing the request of Maduro’s defense team to dismiss the case, which Judge Hellerstein rejected, stating, “I’m not going to dismiss the case.”
Pollack has argued that Maduro, who is subject to U.S. sanctions, should be granted a special license by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to allow the Venezuelan state to pay for his legal fees. U.S. prosecutors reportedly argued the sanctions were imposed because Maduro and his wife were “plundering Venezuela’s wealth, and it does not want to give them access to those resources,” stressing that the funds are being blocked on policy and national security concerns.
“He is entitled to use those resources to defend himself,” Pollack reportedly said, per NBC.
“The defendants have a right to defend themselves with money that is lawfully theirs; they do not have the ability to access third party funds,” Kyle Wirshba, assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in disagreement with Pollack’s assertion.
CNN reports that Judge Hellerstein promised to issue a decision soon on whether or not to order the administration of President Donald Trump to permit the Venezuelan state to pay for Maduro and Flores’s legal fees. According to NBC, Maduro and Flores wore headsets to listen to the Spanish translation of the court proceedings and “appeared to be listening intently as the arguments were presented.”
In addition to the legal fee dispute, the hearing addressed a filing submitted by the prosecutors to Judge Hellerstein requesting he issue a protective order that would bar Maduro and Flores from sharing discovery materials with other co-defendants in the ongoing case who remain at large in Venezuela, such as Maduro’s son Nicolas “Nicolasito” Maduro Guerra and Interior Minister — and long suspected drug lord — Diosdado Cabello.
U.S. prosecutors reportedly argued that Maduro has a long history of threatening political opponents and allowing him access to the materials could pose a risk to witnesses and their families, risk of destruction of evidence, and of compromising ongoing investigations. Hellerstein will reportedly issue a ruling at a later date.
According to the Associated Press, a U.S. law enforcement motorcade escorted Maduro out of the court shortly after the hearing concluded at around 1:00 p.m. (EST), with the pair returning to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, where they have remained detained since January.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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