Cilia Flores seeks home confinement in US case over worsening heart condition

Cilia Flores has asked a US court to move her from a Brooklyn jail to home confinement before trial. The plea rests on her worsening heart condition and could shape how she awaits the New York case.

In Short

• Lawyers said Flores' heart condition has worsened without monthly injections in custody
• She and Nicolas Maduro face New York drug trafficking trial next June
• Defence proposed round-the-clock armed surveillance at a Manhattan district residence

Venezuela's former first lady Cilia Flores has asked a US court to let her await trial in home confinement, with her lawyers saying she is dealing with a heart condition that has worsened in jail. In court papers filed on Wednesday, they said Flores, 69, "deserves the opportunity to await her trial while in home confinement".

Flores and her husband, former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, 63, are due to stand trial in New York next June on US drug trafficking charges, which both have denied. Federal prosecutors have not yet responded to the request, a spokesperson for the US attorney's office in Manhattan declined to comment, and Judge Alvin K Hellerstein has not yet ruled.

Lawyers Mark Donnelly and Andres Sanchez asked the judge to allow Flores to leave a Brooklyn federal jail for a home within the Manhattan federal court district. They said she would be under 24-hour armed surveillance, would only be allowed to meet visitors approved by the court and federal prosecutors, and that the home would be monitored by video while her calls would be recorded.

Flores and Maduro have been held in a Brooklyn jail since US forces seized them from their home in Caracas in a raid in early January and brought them to New York City. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the US. In a separate filing, they recently asked for the indictment to be dismissed, arguing that they have immunity as the leader and first lady of a foreign country.

Flores' lawyers said she has for years lived with mitral valve prolapse, but has not received the monthly injection she needs to manage the condition since her arrest and detention at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn. They said she has instead been prescribed baby aspirin, a statin, diltiazem and nitroglycerin as needed for chest pains. They added that she has continued to suffer from reflux and gastritis, has lost two molars and has shed more than 11.3 kg.

According to the filing, doctors have advised Flores to undergo cardiac catheterisation, which could lead to further heart procedures. Her lawyers said that if that happens, she "will need adequate time to recover from any procedures in a setting conducive to restoring her health".

Donnelly and Sanchez wrote that staff at the jail "have been extremely respectful toward her and her husband", and that Flores "does not dispute that she has received excellent care from medical professionals" at the jail and hospital. But they argued that "a detention centre lacks the conditions needed for such a recovery".

The request before the court centres on whether Flores should remain in jail or be moved to home confinement as she and Maduro await trial next June on charges they have denied.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends