US judge handling Maduro’s drug trafficking case dies at 92

Alvin Hellerstein, a federal judge in New York’s Southern District who had overseen the drug-trafficking case against former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro for more than a decade, died at 92, an official confirmed Wednesday. Maduro, captured by US forces in a raid in Venezuela in January, faces drug-trafficking charges; the case has also led to the conviction of former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Armando Carvajal. Hellerstein handled civil lawsuits arising from the September 11 attacks, rejected Donald Trump’s attempt to move his New York hush-money case to federal court, and in 2025 blocked deportations without court hearings. In 2015, he ordered the release of photographs documenting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in 2025 presided over a trial concerning BNP Paribas’s activities in Sudan.