By Tom Gantert
The United States will ease sanctions on Venezuela to allow its regime to pay legal fees for former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. drug trafficking case, according to a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The April 24 filing states that the U.S. Treasury Department authorized an exception to existing sanctions, permitting funds to be used for Maduro’s legal defense.
Maduro is awaiting trial on federal charges, including charges related to narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.
Attorney Barry Pollack, on behalf of Maduro, said in court documents filed in February that Venezuela, under its laws, had an obligation to pay Maduro’s legal expenses. Pollack said Maduro lacked his own funds to pay for legal counsel and “is being deprived of his constitutional right to counsel of his choice.”
“Mr. Maduro, as Venezuela’s head of state, has both a right and an expectation to have legal fees associated with these charges funded by the government of Venezuela,” the February court filing stated.
If declined, the cost of Maduro’s defense would be shifted from Venezuela to U.S. taxpayers even though Venezuela was willing and obligated to pay for it, Pollack stated in his brief.
“After invading another country and forcibly bringing its sovereign head of state to the United States, the government of the United States is now actively preventing him from retaining counsel of his choice and receiving a fair defense in this Court, in violation of his Sixth Amendment and Due Process rights,” the February filing stated.
Pollack had moved to get the indictment dismissed.
The United States captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro, in a Jan. 3 raid. President Donald Trump posted a photo to social media showing Maduro in custody while blindfolded and handcuffed aboard the U.S. Navy ship USS Iwo Jima.
According to the February filing, Maduro was being held in isolation at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, pending trial on charges that “relate to alleged conduct that occurred while he was the head of state of a sovereign nation.”
The U.S. Department of State said Maduro led the Cartel of the Suns, a drug-trafficking organization that was made up of high-ranking Venezuelan officials.
In November 2025, the State Department declared Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns as a terror organization.
Maduro took over leadership of Venezuela in 2013 and became increasingly politically hostile toward the United States as the years progressed, according to the Department of War.
