Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores face a new U.S. conspiracy-to-torture charge detailing electric shocks, rape, and abuse of more than a dozen American citizens.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York filed a 30-page superseding indictment Thursday that adds the torture conspiracy count against the couple already held in American custody on narco-terrorism and cocaine charges.
CBS News reported the filing expands the case that began when a federal grand jury first charged Maduro and 14 others in March 2020.
Prosecutors say Maduro and Flores oversaw a system of political repression that used Venezuela’s military, intelligence agencies, and security forces to silence opponents and keep power. The indictment states they did so to undermine Venezuelan democracy and entrench themselves.
FBI Director Kash Patel laid out the core allegation on social media.
"As alleged in the indictment, the Maduro regime subjected over a dozen American citizens to torture while held in custody of the Venezuelan government, including drugs, electrocution, sexual assault, and more,"
Patel added: "They will now answer for their crimes."
The superseding indictment spells out the methods. Prosecutors wrote that the torture included electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture such as threats to harm and kill victims’ families, including children.
One American arrested in 2022 was allegedly given injections that caused seizures. A U.S. citizen detained in 2023 was severely beaten and tortured by Venezuelan intelligence officers. One officer allegedly told that prisoner he had been kept alive because his American citizenship made him useful in a potential prisoner exchange.
Prosecutors allege Maduro ordered political opponents detained and tortured, received regular updates on the interrogations, and told officials to intensify the abuse. During one briefing about a defiant prisoner, Maduro allegedly said to “squeeze them harder.”
In 2014, during political unrest, Maduro allegedly proposed abducting five to seven military officers suspected of disloyalty and extracting information through torture. The indictment says Flores agreed with the proposal.
"To undermine Venezuelan democracy and entrench themselves in power, these same leaders presided over a system of repression that relied on violence against political opposition, arbitrary detention, and the torture of detainees, including United States citizens,"
the prosecutors wrote.
Maduro and Flores were taken into custody by the U.S. military in an overnight operation and brought to the United States. On Jan. 5, 2026, they were seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad and escorted by heavily armed federal agents to the federal courthouse.
They already face narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. Those charges stem from an alleged scheme to import “thousands of tons” of cocaine into the United States. Both pleaded not guilty to the initial counts.
A demonstration in support of Maduro and Flores took place in Caracas on Jan. 16, 2026, with a mural reading “#Free Maduro and Cilia.”
At a bail hearing Thursday, Flores’s lawyer asked the judge to delay arraignment on the new torture charge because the indictment had only arrived that morning. The judge allowed the delay.
The lawyer then argued Flores should be released on bail with strict conditions because of health concerns related to her heart. The judge denied bail, noting she had access to “considerable funds” and calling the charges “serious allegations.”
The original March 2020 indictment against Maduro and 14 others was brought in the Southern District of New York during the first Trump administration. The January grand-jury indictment that put the couple in custody expanded the drug-trafficking case before Thursday’s torture addition.
American citizens held in Venezuelan prisons allegedly endured drugs, electrocution, sexual assault, drowning, and severe beatings under the system Maduro and Flores are now charged with directing. The superseding indictment puts those specific acts before a U.S. court.
Accountability for torturing Americans belongs in an American courtroom, not in the hands of the regime that ordered it.
