A federal judge in Manhattan set June 1, 2027, as the start date for the trial of captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on drug trafficking and weapons charges.
United States District Judge, Alvin Hellerstein, adopted the date after prosecutors from the Manhattan Attorney’s Office and defense lawyers for the couple jointly proposed it in a filing submitted Tuesday night.
Both sides told the judge they believe the timeline is realistic, though they cautioned they might later seek adjustments.
Maduro and Flores were captured in a nighttime US military raid in January and have since been held in a Brooklyn jail.
They pleaded not guilty in January to four felony counts, including narco-terrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation conspiracy, along with weapons-related charges.
Before any trial begins, the court will first take up a series of pretrial motions; important among them is an expected defense argument that Maduro and Flores are immune from US prosecution because Maduro was still Venezuela’s head of state at the time of his capture.
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Barry Pollack, Maduro’s lead attorney, told the judge that a favorable ruling on sovereign immunity could make it unnecessary to litigate further over the government’s evidence. He has also signaled he intends to challenge the legality of the military operation that brought Maduro to the United States.
Hellerstein set a November 17 hearing for arguments on those motions and ordered prosecutors to finish handing over classified evidence to the defense by mid-November. A second round of pretrial motions could follow by January 11, 2027, once that material has been reviewed.
The case had earlier been slowed by a dispute over whether Venezuela’s government could pay for Maduro’s legal defense, given US sanctions; that standoff was resolved in the spring when Washington agreed to modify its financial sanctions to permit the payments.
Since Maduro’s capture, Venezuela has been governed by his former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has pursued warmer relations with the Trump administration.
The United States has since eased sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, and foreign firms have expanded operations in the country.
Maduro, who led Venezuela from 2013 until his capture, has referred to himself in court as a “prisoner of war” and denies the legitimacy of the US proceedings against him.
