Maduro and Cilia Flores plead not guilty to torture charge in New York federal court

Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, entered not guilty pleas in a New York federal courtroom after prosecutors added a charge alleging they conspired to torture U.S. citizens.

The new count was filed as part of a superseding indictment that supplements the pair’s earlier charges of narcoterrorism linked to cocaine trafficking and unlawful possession of machine guns, and it carries a possible sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison.

The Washington Examiner’s account says the two remain detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn while the matter is pending before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

At the arraignment Maduro reiterated his rejection of the case; the Washington Examiner cites his earlier January courtroom statement, quoting him saying, "I reject this document in its entirety." The article records that Maduro had previously pleaded not guilty to the initial indictment in January and that the torture allegation was added later in the superseding indictment.

The account lists the specific criminal themes now joined in the indictment: narcoterrorism tied to cocaine trafficking, machine-gun possession, and the newly added torture conspiracy charge.

The Washington Examiner also reports that President Donald Trump ordered Maduro’s capture from Caracas in early January and describes a U.S. military operation named Operation Absolute Resolve that the outlet says brought Maduro and Flores to the United States; the outlet reports the operation lasted under three hours before U.S. forces returned.

According to the same account, the Justice Department has placed the case before Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who the Washington Examiner reported set a trial date of June 14, 2027, and scheduled a final pretrial conference for June 8.

Maduro and Flores’s detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn is presented as the immediate status of the defendants while their case proceeds in the Southern District of New York.

The Washington Examiner article frames the addition of the torture charge as an escalation of the existing federal case by joining it to the narcoterrorism and weapons allegations already in the indictment.

The article includes direct courtroom remarks from Maduro previously recorded in January but does not provide quotes from U.S. prosecutors, defence counsel for Flores, or Flores herself in the supplied text.

Other outlets carried headlines reporting the same not guilty pleas; those headlines corroborate that Maduro and Flores denied the new torture allegations in New York court.

The available reporting in the Washington Examiner article supplies the procedural steps taken so far — arraignment on a superseding indictment, detention at MDC Brooklyn, and scheduling details for pretrial and trial dates as reported by that outlet.