Maduro’s wife seeks home detention as heart condition worsens in US custody

Cilia Flores de Maduro has filed a motion asking a federal judge to transfer her from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to home confinement in the Manhattan federal court district while she awaits trial. Her attorneys told the court that her cardiac health deteriorated after a January 3 U.S. military operation that removed her and her husband, former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, from Caracas and brought them to U.S. custody.

According to the filing, Flores previously required only a monthly injection to manage a mitral valve prolapse but is now on four medications and keeps nitroglycerin nearby for chest pain. Her legal team says outside medical consultants suspect she suffered a minor heart attack on July 29 while detained, and that doctors have advised coronary evaluation and possible surgery — procedures that would require a monitored recovery period the lawyers say a detention facility cannot provide.

The filing concedes Flores has received “excellent care” from medical staff in custody, but contends the detention center lacks the environment needed for post-procedural rehabilitation. As an alternative, her lawyers propose moving her to a Manhattan residence where she would remain under strict court-ordered restrictions: 24-hour armed supervision, recorded phone calls, video monitoring of the home and visits limited to court- and prosecutor-approved individuals.

Flores, 69, and Maduro, 63, have been held in the United States since the January operation and have pleaded not guilty to U.S. charges alleging involvement in a conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the country. Their trial is scheduled to begin next June. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has not yet ruled on Flores’s application.