From palace to prison: Venezuelan strongman Maduro locked in troubled Brooklyn jail

close

Video

Maduro defense set to challenge legality of 'Operation Absolute Resolve'

Fox News senior correspondent Eric Shawn reports after Nicolás Maduro and his wife plead not guilty in New York, with their next court date set for March 17.

Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are spending their days for the foreseeable future at a notorious jail in Brooklyn known for housing high-profile defendants awaiting trial in New York City.

The Metropolitan Detention Center, known as MDC Brooklyn, is a sprawling, industrial-style facility that has faced a series of scandals in recent years involving assaults and poor prison conditions. Maduro, the Venezuelan leader arrested in his home in Caracas by the U.S. military over the weekend, is now being held at the jail on narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation and weapons charges.

MDC Brooklyn currently holds more than 1,300 inmates, according to the Bureau of Prisons. A BOP representative confirmed to Fox News Digital that Maduro and his wife were among that figure.

MADURO'S WIFE SUFFERED 'SIGNIFICANT INJURIES' IN DRAMATIC CAPTURE, ATTORNEY ALLEGES

Federal officers stand guard outside the Department of Justice next to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after the U.S. captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, in New York City, Jan. 3, 2026. (Reuters/Eduardo Munoz)

MDC Brooklyn inmates include little-known defendants and prominent ones, and they face a range of mild to serious charges. 

Maduro is likely to be held in what is known as the "VIP section" of the jail, according to Renato Stabile. Stabile is a New York-based criminal defense lawyer who represented former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was also held in MDC Brooklyn before he was freed in December as a result of Trump granting him a controversial pardon.

Stabile told Fox News Digital the VIP section is part of the east side of the jail, where high-profile figures like Hernández, rap artist Sean "Diddy" Combs and convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried were once held. Others at MDC Brooklyn include Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old accused of murdering a top health insurance CEO. Jeffrey Epstein's associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was also held there.

People celebrate in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Jan. 3, 2026, after the capture of Nicolás Maduro. (Reuters/Eduardo Munoz)

Those on the east side will be "hanging out together every day and watching TV together and playing pingpong together and doing whatever they do on that side," Stabile said. He said the west side, where general population inmates are held, might be more crowded but that treatment of them was likely otherwise the same.

One reason inmates are segregated based on their notoriety could be that they are more vulnerable to violence or extortion, he said.

MDC Brooklyn is a male and female jail, but the inmates are not intermixed by sex, so Maduro and his wife might not be able to interact much there, except during joint meetings with their lawyers.

AFTER MADURO, VENEZUELA POWER VACUUM EXPOSES BRUTAL INSIDERS AND ENFORCERS

NYPD officers stand guard on a blocked road outside the MDC Brooklyn on Jan. 5, 2026, in New York City. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Maduro is being represented by New York-based attorney Barry Pollack, who previously represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty in court on Monday and now await their next court appearance, slated for March 17.

MDC Brooklyn has repeatedly come under scrutiny for its troubles, including a week-long power outage in the winter of 2019 that left inmates in freezing conditions, multiple inmate murders and assaults in 2024, and several allegations of inhumane conditions, including inadequate medical staffing and unsanitary food.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Stabile said, in his view, the facility is "run fairly efficiently."

"But I can tell you that the east side is run a lot more efficiently than the west side, just because there are less people," he said, noting that lawyers can see their clients with less hassle.