Maduro's Wife Seeks Home Confinement Citing Heart Condition

Cilia Flores, the wife of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, has asked a federal judge to release her from a Brooklyn detention center so she can await trial under home confinement, citing a serious deterioration in her heart health since she was taken into U.S. custody in January. In court papers filed Wednesday, her attorneys Mark Donnelly and Andres Sanchez asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to move the 69-year-old from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to a residence within the Manhattan federal court district, where she and Maduro are scheduled to stand trial on June 1, 2027. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges alleging they participated in a conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the United States. Her lawyers say Flores may have suffered a minor heart attack over the summer, though they acknowledge no laboratory tests were taken or documented to confirm it. They report she has lost more than 25 pounds and two molars, sleeps no more than three to four hours a night, and experiences weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath and occasional rapid heartbeat.