Nicolás Maduro returned to a Manhattan federal court on Thursday as his defense attorney moved to dismiss all narcoterrorism charges, arguing that US Treasury sanctions are unconstitutionally strangling his ability to fund his own legal defense — a dispute that could unravel the most high-profile prosecution in a generation.
NEW YORK — Attorney Barry Pollack filed a formal motion before the Southern District of New York on Thursday, March 26, demanding all charges against Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores be dismissed, citing the US government’s refusal to permit Venezuelan state funds to cover their legal fees — a block Pollack argues directly violates Maduro’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choice.
The motion filed Thursday marks the sharpest escalation yet in the funding dispute. Pollack warned the court that unless the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) restores the payment license, he and his legal team will have no choice but to withdraw from the case entirely — forcing the court to appoint a public defender and shifting the cost to US taxpayers, a scenario the defense argues would render any future conviction constitutionally fragile.
The OFAC license reversal
The core of the dispute traces back to a single, unexplained bureaucratic reversal. On January 9, OFAC issued a license permitting the Venezuelan government to pay Maduro’s legal fees. Roughly three hours later, without explanation, it issued an amended license that specifically blocked Pollack from accepting payment for representing Maduro, while still allowing him to represent Flores.
Pollack called it a constitutional violation, writing in a February 20 letter to the court: “OFAC is interfering with Mr. Maduro’s ability to retain counsel and, therefore, his right under the Sixth Amendment to counsel of his choice.” He formally challenged OFAC on February 11 and received no response before today’s hearing.
Prosecutors have countered that the initial license was an administrative error and that Maduro is free to use personal funds. But the defense responded pointedly: Venezuelan law expressly obligates the state to cover presidential legal expenses, and Maduro, held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, “cannot otherwise afford counsel”.
What most coverage has underreported is the legal bind this creates for the court itself. If Maduro loses Pollack – a lawyer who successfully navigated Julian Assange’s extradition battle – the court cannot simply proceed. Appointing a public defender without resolving the constitutional funding question could create grounds for appeal on any verdict, regardless of the underlying evidence.
A statute with a thin conviction record
Thursday’s hearing also forced scrutiny onto the 2006 narcoterrorism law underpinning the entire case. Since its enactment, 83 people have been charged under the statute. Only four have gone to trial and been convicted -and two of those convictions were later overturned due to witness credibility problems, according to a Reuters review of federal court records.
The statute targets drug traffickers who finance activities that the US designates as terrorism. Maduro is accused of coordinating cocaine shipments through Venezuela in partnership with the FARC – designated a foreign terrorist organization by Washington from 1997 to 2021 – as well as officials including Diosdado Cabello and former Interior Minister Néstor Reverol.
Witness protection dispute adds another layer
A separate and largely unreported tension surfaced Thursday over prosecution evidence. Prosecutors are seeking a strict protective order over case documents, arguing that Maduro’s four co-defendants — all still at large in Venezuela and each with hundreds of thousands to millions of social media followers — could use disclosed witness identities to threaten or arrest sources through Venezuela’s security apparatus.
Diosdado Cabello alone has 2.6 million followers on X and over one million on Instagram, according to a prosecution letter to Judge Hellerstein. The defense has until March 30 to appeal the protective order request – a deadline that, if challenged, could delay the proceedings further.
Presiding over all of this is Judge Alvin Hellerstein, now 92, who legal observers note was seen falling asleep during a prior hearing. Experts predict the trial itself, if it reaches that stage, will not begin for another one to two years — by which point Hellerstein would be 94.
The real exposure here is not just constitutional. If the prosecution proceeds to trial with a seldom-used statute, an unresolved funding dispute that could compromise Sixth Amendment protections, and a presiding judge whose capacity may be questioned on appeal, the case against the most prominent defendant in its history risks collapsing not on the facts, but on procedure.
