Venezuela’s former first lady is seeking release from jail as she and her husband await trial on US drug trafficking charges.
Cilia Flores, the wife of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, should be allowed to await trial under home confinement because of a heart condition that has worsened during her detention, her attorneys said in court papers filed Wednesday.
Her lawyers, Mark Donnelly and Andres Sanchez, asked a judge to permit Flores to leave the Brooklyn federal jail and stay at a residence within the Manhattan federal court district, where she and Maduro are set to go on trial next June.
Under the proposed conditions, Flores would be subject to round-the-clock armed surveillance and permitted to receive only visitors approved by the court and federal prosecutors, the lawyers said.
The residence would also be monitored by video, while her phone calls would be recorded, according to the filing.
Federal prosecutors had not filed a response as of Wednesday.
A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.
US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has not yet ruled on Flores’ request.
Flores, 69, and Maduro, 63, have been held in a Brooklyn jail since US forces seized them from their Caracas home during a middle-of-the-night raid in early January and transported them to New York City.
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Both have pleaded not guilty to allegations that they participated in a conspiracy to send cocaine into the United States.
In a separate court filing, they recently asked that their indictment be dismissed on the grounds that they have immunity as the leader and first lady of a foreign country.
Flores’ lawyers said that she has lived for years with a mitral valve prolapse but hasn’t received a monthly injection she needs to manage the ailment since her arrest and subsequent incarceration at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Instead, Donnelly and Sanchez said, she has been prescribed baby aspirin, a statin, diltiazem and nitroglycerin as needed for chest pains.
She has continually suffered from reflux and gastritis, has lost two molars and shed more than 25 pounds.
Flores has been advised by doctors that she should undergo cardiac catheterization, which could lead to further heart procedures, her lawyers said.
If that happens, they said, she “will need adequate time to recover from any procedures in a setting conducive to restoring her health.”
Staff at the jail “have been extremely respectful toward her and her husband,” and Flores “does not dispute that she has received excellent care from medical professionals” at the jail and hospital, Donnelly and Sanchez wrote.
But, they argued, “a detention center lacks the conditions needed for such a recovery.”