Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has reportedly been meeting with a local rabbi and exploring his family’s Jewish roots while awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Maduro, 63, has previously said he descends from Sephardic Jews who migrated from the Dutch Antilles to Venezuela. In jail, he has been reading the Tanach, the Quran and works of philosophy, and has met regularly with a rabbi and a priest. People close to Maduro say he has lost considerable weight and frequently complains about the jail food.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured on January 3 in a U.S. commando raid in Caracas ordered by President Trump. Both have pleaded not guilty and are expected to stand trial in 2027 on federal charges that include cocaine trafficking.

Court filings describe a sharp decline in Flores’s health since her arrest. Flores, 70, was recovering from surgery when she was captured and spent three months in isolation. She has lost two teeth and more than 24 pounds in custody and was exposed to pepper spray during a fight among inmates. Her lawyers say she may have suffered a mild heart attack in July.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Flores’s request for release before his death. The case has since been reassigned to Judge Analisa Torres.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)