Captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty to charges of narco-terrorism and other charges in a New York court on Monday, with 92-year-old judge Alvin Hellerstein presiding over their case.
The case in which Maduro was indicted in 2020, was filed 15 years ago in Hellerstein’s court, and has seen the conviction of Hugo Armando Carvajalthe former intelligence chief of the Latin American country.
Who is Alvin Hellerstein?
A Columbia University law school graduate, Hellerstein served as a US Army lawyer from 1957 to 1960 before he chose to enter private practice.
He was nominated as a district court judge by ex-president Bill Clinton in 1998 for the Southern District of New York.
During his long and eventful career, Hellerstein has presided over several civil cases stemming from the 11 September, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, DC.
He has also faced off against Donald Trump on some occasions, rejecting a request by the president to have his New York hush money case moved to federal court.
Hellerstein also blocked the Trump administration last year from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without a court hearing.
In September, he sentenced Charlie Javice, the tech start-up highflier, to more than seven years in prison after she was convicted of defrauding JPMorgan Chase in a deal worth $175 million.
In another high-profile fraud case, Hellerstein sentenced Bill Hwang, the founder of US investment firm Archegos Capital Management, to 18 years behind bars.
Hellerstein also presided over the 2025 trial in which a jury found that French banking giant BNP Paribas’ work in Sudan had helped prop up the regime of former ruler Omar al-Bashir, awarding $20.75 million in damages to three plaintiffs from Sudan.
In a notable ruling in 2015, Hellerstein ordered the US government to release a trove of photos depicting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.
