US says Venezuelan government can pay for Nicolás Maduro's defense

The U.S. government on Friday evening conceded that the Venezuelan government could pay for Nicolás Maduro’s defense lawyers, an issue that had been hanging over the case for weeks.

In a letter filed in Manhattan federal court, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, said that the Treasury Department had issued amended licenses that would allow defense lawyers for Maduro, the former president of Venezuela, and his wife, Cilia Flores, to receive payments from their country’s government.

The department had previously blocked those payments, setting off furious protests from defense lawyers.

The development comes a month after a hearing in which the judge presiding over the case, Alvin K. Hellerstein, sharply questioned the government as to why the funds were being blocked. The judge even suggested that if the United States did not change course, he might consider dismissing the case, a suggestion that had been made by a lawyer for Maduro, Barry J. Pollack.

In the letter, Clayton said that Maduro’s lawyers had agreed that the Treasury Department’s concession had rendered the defense’s efforts to dismiss the indictment moot and were withdrawing that request for the time being.

U.S. forces seized Maduro from a compound in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, in January and transported him to the United States. He was charged in Manhattan with conspiracies to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, along with other counts. Maduro and Flores, who was charged in the same indictment, have pleaded not guilty. Both are being held in a Brooklyn detention facility while they await trial.

A trial is still months if not years away. But the concession by the administration Friday evening clears the first major hurdle in the case. The issue first became public in February when Pollack alerted Hellerstein that the U.S. government was blocking the Venezuelan government from paying him through the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The office, known as OFAC, grants licenses that allow individuals and companies to enter arrangements with countries subject to U.S. sanctions that would normally be barred. Pollack said that after initially granting a license that would have allowed him to accept payment from Venezuela, OFAC amended that license to bar those payments.

Pollack argued that the restriction rendered Maduro unable to afford his services. He said that the decision interfered with Maduro’s Sixth Amendment right to the counsel of his choice.

At the hearing in Manhattan federal court last month, Hellerstein appeared inclined to agree. He said several times that Maduro’s right to defense was “paramount” and suggested that the relevant sanctions might be outdated given the renewed relations between the United States and Venezuela.

When the judge indicated he might rule against the government, the lead prosecutor on the case, Kyle Wirshba, suggested that the Trump administration might revisit the issue.

In his Friday letter, Clayton said that the amended licenses subjected the Venezuelan funds to certain conditions, including that the payments are made with funds available to the country’s government after March 5, 2026, the day that Venezuela and the United States formally reestablished diplomatic relations.

The letter was filed before Hellerstein ruled on the issue. Clayton said that the prosecution and defense were requesting a status hearing in 60 days, at which the next steps in the lengthy march to trial are likely to come into focus.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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