US Adds Torture Charge Against Maduro and Flores

US prosecutors have charged former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with conspiring to commit torture, widening a criminal case already built around drugs and weapons allegations. ^[1]

The superseding indictment, unsealed in Manhattan on October 8, alleges that the couple helped maintain power through a system of repression that tortured political opponents and US citizens held in Venezuelan custody. The new count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if they are convicted. ^[1]

Maduro and Flores have been held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since US forces captured them in Caracas on January 3, 2026. They previously pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges, and their trial is scheduled for June 1, 2027. ^[2]

The torture allegations have not been tested at trial. Maduro's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new charges, while Flores's lawyer said he had not yet had time to review them with her. ^[1][2][3]

At a separate hearing, prosecutors opposed Flores's request for release for medical treatment, describing her as an "extreme flight risk" and citing potential danger, including witness intimidation. Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied the request. ^[2][3]

A charge centered on political repression

The new count brings alleged human-rights abuses into a prosecution that already includes narcoterrorism, cocaine-importation and weapons offenses. A superseding indictment replaces an earlier indictment, allowing prosecutors to put the expanded set of accusations before the court. ^[1]

According to the Justice Department, the indictment describes a system operating since at least 1999 in which thousands of Venezuelans faced threats, detention, prosecution, physical abuse or death at the hands of people exercising state authority. ^[1]

Prosecutors place Maduro and Flores at the top of that system. They allege that state agencies and allied groups punished perceived opponents, with repression intensifying when the couple's hold on power came under threat. ^[1][3]

The charge therefore puts the alleged use of state coercion to preserve their rule within the scope of the US criminal proceedings. Prosecutors will have to establish the defendants' alleged participation in the torture conspiracy, rather than simply describe abuses committed in Venezuela. ^[1]

The indictment describes electric shocks, asphyxiation, prolonged isolation, starvation and psychological abuse, including threats against detainees' families. It also alleges sexual violence, forced nudity and confinement in punishment cells. ^[1]

One episode concerns a Venezuelan military officer suspected of plotting a coup. According to the indictment, military counterintelligence officers arrested him in 2013 and tortured him with electric shocks and suspension by his hands and feet. ^[2]

That account identifies both an alleged target of the repression and the state agency whose officers prosecutors say carried it out. The conspiracy accusation seeks to connect such acts to the people prosecutors allege helped direct the wider system. ^[1][2]

Three US citizens described as victims

The indictment describes three US citizens as torture victims but does not name them. Their accounts include allegations of severe beatings, electric shocks and lasting injury while in Venezuelan custody. ^[3][4]

Those detention accounts sit within the same alleged campaign against perceived opponents. Prosecutors say the system used arbitrary detention, violence and torture to sustain Maduro and Flores's power. ^[1][3]

The Justice Department says the torture-conspiracy count alone carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. That figure is not the maximum punishment for the entire case, which includes other counts with separate penalties and mandatory minimum terms if the defendants are convicted. ^[1]

A maximum sentence sets the upper limit for a count. A mandatory minimum sets a floor. Neither is a sentence already imposed on Maduro or Flores, whose prosecution is still moving toward trial.

Maduro's lawyers have argued that he is immune from prosecution as the leader of a sovereign country. That argument challenges the US court's authority to prosecute him and presents a legal issue separate from whether prosecutors can prove the criminal allegations. ^[2][3]

Flores remains in jail

Flores's lawyer sought her release to a residence in the New York area under private security, saying she needed a cardiac procedure. The request asked the court to allow treatment outside jail while keeping her under privately provided supervision. ^[2][3]

Prosecutors opposed the proposed arrangement on both flight-risk and safety grounds. Their concerns included possible witness intimidation, an allegation relevant to protecting the proceedings as well as securing Flores's attendance at trial. ^[2][3]

Hellerstein said he did not think the conditions for release had been met. He also said Flores's appearance seemed no worse, and perhaps better, than at her first court appearance. ^[2][3]

According to the Associated Press account, the judge noted that she was unwilling to undergo catheterization in jail to investigate her heart problems. He questioned whether the information before him showed an urgent threat to her health that justified release. ^[3]

The ruling leaves Flores in federal detention while the expanded prosecution proceeds. The defendants' responses to the new charge and the court's handling of Maduro's immunity argument are still pending. Their trial is scheduled to begin on June 1, 2027. ^[2][3]