At 92 years of age, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein is presiding over one of the most significant international cases of his lengthy judicial career: the arraignment of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The proceedings unfolded in Judge Hellerstein’s Manhattan courtroom at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse, where Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, entered not guilty pleas to charges including narco-terrorism.
This case represents the latest chapter in a sprawling drug trafficking investigation that has been before Hellerstein for approximately 15 years, resulting in the 2020 indictment of Maduro and the prior conviction of Venezuela’s former intelligence director, Hugo Armando Carvajal.
Judge Hellerstein’s judicial tenure spans more than two decades since his 1998 appointment by President Bill Clinton to the Southern District of New York. A Columbia University law graduate and former U.S. Army lawyer (1957-1960), Hellerstein has developed a reputation for handling complex, high-profile cases with international implications.
His distinguished career includes presiding over numerous civil cases related to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and he has issued several notable rulings that challenged both Democratic and Republican administrations. In a significant 2015 decision, Hellerstein ordered the U.S. government to release photographs depicting detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More recently, Hellerstein has intersected with Trump-era policies, rejecting a request to move Donald Trump’s New York hush money case to federal court and blocking the administration from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without court hearings.
The jurist has also handled major financial fraud cases, sentencing tech entrepreneur Charlie Javice to over seven years for defrauding JPMorgan Chase and imposing an 18-year sentence on Archegos Capital Management founder Bill Hwang. In another international matter, he presided over a case finding BNP Paribas liable for supporting Sudan’s former regime, resulting in a $20.75 million award to plaintiffs.