Ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro returned to a Manhattan court Thursday to face historic drug trafficking charges — as he tussled with prosecutors over who should foot his legal bills.
The toppled strongman, 63, wearing a tan jail jumpsuit and black glasses, calmly jotted down notes during his first appearance in court since January, where he had defiantly claimed that the US military had “kidnapped’’ him.
The hearing unfolded inside a packed Manhattan federal courtroom, as dueling protesters clashed outside.
Prosecutors and lawyers for Maduro and his wife, 69-year-old Celia Flores, are expected to grapple during the hearing over who will pay Maduro’s legal fees.
Maduro’s camp says Venezuela’s government should be able to pay for his defense, but the US government has yet to hand over a waiver exempting them from US sanctions.
Before the hearing, several hundred prostesters both pro- and anti-Maduro gathered outside the courthouse. One member of the anti-Maduro cadre held up a sign saying “Maduro, Rot in Prison,” while the pro-Maduro crew held Venezuelan flags and signs saying “Free President Maduro.”
Others danced as they draped themselves in Venezuelan flags, displaying an effigy of Maduro in prison garb with a chain around his neck and one wrist.
Janette Panzenbeck, 59, a translator from Venezuela who has lived in Manhattan for 30 years and still has two brothers and other family living in her home country, enthusiastically praised President Trump for taking decisive action in ousting the vicious dictator.
Here’s the latest on Nicolás Maduro’s capture:
“I actually have a lot of respect for President Trump. I like him, what he’s doing in Venezuela, and even in Iran because it’s a regime of 47 years where they have executed their own people,” she told The Post while waving a small Venezuelan flag.
“Venezuela is different from that, but people are just very happy and call him Uncle Trump,” she said, claiming that if asked, “85-95%” of people in the South American nation are “so happy” Maduro is gone and grateful for their “liberation” from the despot.
“Now Venezuelan people are breathing that air of freedom, and I’m just so happy here celebrating that this dictator is now in court in the United States,” she said.
Both Maduro and his wife remain jailed at the Brooklyn Detention Center. Judge Alvin Hellerstein has yet to set a trial date.