While Trump pardoned an actual drug lord president, he keeps a kidnapped Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, First Combatant Celia Flores, in a mold-infested Brooklyn jail on false and politically motivated charges. Cilia Flores has not received medical care she needs and her life is in grave danger.
Originally published in Struggle-La Lucha.
Outrage is growing at the Trump regime keeping Cilia Flores behind bars as her heart condition worsens, the former president of the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Venezuela’s First Combatant was kidnapped by United States special forces on Jan. 3, along with her husband, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
This grave crime against Venezuela’s sovereignty and international law was carried out on behalf of oil profits. Chevron and the rest of Big Oil want to steal the country’s 300 billion barrels of oil deposits.
Over 100 Cuban and Venezuelan defenders were killed in the terrorist attack. Lawyers pointed out that Cilia Flores “was thrown against a wall or a dresser and suffered significant forehead injuries that required about 20 stitches.”
Flores was also “recovering from a total hysterectomy performed in November 2025. She had been advised to limit her movements for at least three months, which included bed rest at home, avoiding physical exertion from exercise, and limiting walking to the minimum within the home.”
None of this matters to Wall Street and the Trump administration. Cilia Flores and Nicolás Maduro were imprisoned in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center on Brooklyn’s waterfront.
This hellhole was described by the lawyer Daniel McGuinness as being infested with mold and fungus. The food is terrible, and access to medical and dental care is “horrific.”
Cilia Flores also lost two of her teeth and 25 pounds in weight. More serious is her heart condition.
Flores believes that she may have suffered a heart attack while being imprisoned. The use of pepper spray by guards in her prison unit “left her with chest tightness.”
Lawyers for Cilia Flores have requested she be removed from the Metropolitan Detention Center and placed in private housing so she can access adequate medical care. She even offered to wear a GPS tracker and be watched by armed guards around the clock.
Lower Manhattan, Oct. 8, 2026 – dozens rallied to free Flores and Maduro outside the federal courthouse.
Mobilizing for justice
On Oct. 8, Judge Alvin Hellerstein refused to release her. He claimed she could get heart treatment while imprisoned. But the danger is recovering inside the jail. Flores is held in a crowded unit with more than 40 other women, where she sleeps only three or four hours a night and guards use pepper spray as routine punishment. The procedure could also show she needs more heart treatment.
The same day, federal prosecutors brought new bogus charges against President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores of torturing prisoners. Among those supposedly mistreated were the U.S. mercenaries who attempted to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution in 2020.
Observers believe that these new charges are being brought because the attempted frame-up of Maduro and Flores as drug kingpins is falling apart. Jason Richman, the federal Southern District of New York ‘s top prosecutor who was handling this case, suddenly resigned on Sept. 25.
One problem for the Trump administration is that the Cártel de los Soles — Cartel of the Suns — which Maduro and Flores were allegedly involved in, doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, Trump has pardoned an actual drug lord, the former right-wing president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández.
On Oct. 8, outside the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, dozens of supporters of Venezuelan sovereignty rallied for hours with signs and banners. People denounced the mistreatment of Cilia Flores and connected it to the struggle against Trump’s war against poor people everywhere.
Among these speakers were activists from Brooklyn Against War, the Black Alliance for Peace, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York , Code Pink, Workers World Party, Haiti Liberté newspaper, and Struggle-La Lucha newspaper.
The previous Saturday, Oct. 3, 60 people rallied at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to free President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. It was reported that the Venezuelan president could hear the protesters.
On the third of every month, Brooklyn Against War helps organize a protest at this bastille to mark their Jan. 3 kidnapping. All opponents of Trump are urged to participate.
Free President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores!
Alec Karakatsanis is an attorney with a long history of work as a public defender.
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