Cilia Flores is asking a federal judge to release her from a Brooklyn jail so she can recover from heart procedures at home.
Flores, 69, the wife of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, 63, filed papers Wednesday seeking home confinement in Manhattan while the couple awaits their drug trafficking trial next June. Her lawyers, Mark Donnelly and Andres Sanchez, argued that her mitral valve prolapse has worsened dramatically since her January arrest and that she now needs cardiac catheterization that could lead to further operations.
The lawyers painted a grim picture of her declining health. She has lost more than 25 pounds, suffered continual reflux and gastritis, and lost two molars since being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. She has not received a monthly injection she previously used to manage her heart condition for years, they said, and now relies on baby aspirin, a statin, diltiazem and nitroglycerin as needed for chest pains.
Doctors have advised that Flores undergo cardiac catheterization, which her lawyers warned could require additional heart procedures. “She will need adequate time to recover from any procedures in a setting conducive to restoring her health,” Donnelly and Sanchez wrote. They added that “a detention center lacks the conditions needed for such a recovery.”
The proposed arrangement would place Flores under 24-hour armed surveillance at a home within the Manhattan federal court district. Her visitors would be limited to those approved by the court and federal prosecutors, her calls would be recorded, and the residence would be monitored by video, according to the filing.
Federal prosecutors have not yet responded to the request. A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has not ruled on the matter.
Despite their push for release, Flores’ lawyers took care to praise jail staff. “Staff at the jail have been extremely respectful toward her and her husband,” they wrote, and Flores “does not dispute that she has received excellent care from medical professionals” at both the detention center and hospital. The problem, they argued, is the environment itself, not the people working there.
Flores and Maduro were seized from their Caracas home in a predawn raid in early January and flown to New York City. They have been held at the Brooklyn jail ever since. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the United States.
In a separate filing, the couple recently asked that their indictment be dismissed entirely, arguing that they hold immunity as the leader and first lady of a foreign country. That challenge remains pending alongside the new request for Flores’ release.