NYC jail holding Maduro has a troubled, star-studded past : NPR
A Venezuelan supporter of U.S. operations in Venezuela celebrates outside the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center on Saturday.
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John Lamparksi/AFP via Getty Images
Nicolás Maduro is being held in a New York City prison known for its high-profile inmates and dangerous conditions.
The Venezuelan president and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured by the U.S. military overnight Saturday and flown to the United States, where they face federal criminal charges related to alleged drug and arms trafficking.
They now await trial in New York from the confines of the Metropolitan Detention Center, or MDC, a Brooklyn federal prison with a scandal-plagued past.
A number of figures have passed through the MDC in recent years while awaiting sentencing. Luigi Mangione, for example, is currently detained there.
Other previous residents include Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, former President Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, singer R. Kelly, crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
His previous list also includes other world leaders. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was detained at the MDC after his extradition and arrest on drug and firearms charges in 2022. Ironically, Trump pardoned him in December 2025 even as he increased pressure on Maduro.
Despite its high profile, the prison has struggled with problems of overcrowding, violence, medical neglect and inmate deaths in recent years, prompting several judges to refuse to send inmates there.
The MDC on Monday. Recent problems at the prison included “constant confinements, medical mistreatment and botched cancer diagnoses, as well as complaints about maggot-infested food,” according to New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes.
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After 2024 murders, authorities say prison is safe
Before disgraced rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs stayed at MDC, his attorneys unsuccessfully lobbied the judge in his case not to be imprisoned, in part because of the dire conditions there.
They wrote in a letter that several district courts had already recognized that MDC was “not suitable for pretrial detention,” citing previous cases describing overcrowding, staffing issues, food contamination, unsafe physical conditions and violence at the facility.
That year, at least two judges refused to order defendants to surrender at MDC because of its problems.
A judge said he would drop tax fraud charges against a 75-year-old man and place him under house arrest rather than sending him to MDC, citing “inhumane treatment” at the facility. The other ordered a man convicted in a drug case to remain free until sentencing rather than wait at that particular facility.
“It got to the point that it became routine [for federal judges in Manhattan and Brooklyn] to grant reduced sentences to defendants based on the conditions of detention at MDC,” Judge Jesse Furman of Manhattan Federal District Court wrote in January 2024, as the facility was in its third week of confinement following an assault on staff members.
Two inmates died in separate stabbing attacks during the summer of 2024 (nine others were later charged with murder and other assaults). Combs’ attorneys also highlighted in their letter reports of at least four inmate suicide deaths in the previous three years.
The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) said at the time that it was working to resolve staffing and other issues, including adding medical staff and responding to more than 700 overdue interview requests.
But problems persisted, including “constant lockdowns, medical mistreatment and botched cancer diagnoses, and complaints about maggot-infested foods,” according to New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes.
“The MDC is known for dangerous and inhumane conditions that have led to the deaths of several detainees, including medical neglect, abuse, severe understaffing and extreme temperatures,” he said in July 2025.
In a September 2025 fact sheet, the BOP said there had been a “substantial decrease in violence, limits on the time inmates are allowed out of their cells, and attempts to introduce contraband” into the prison since the previous year. They attributed the progress to more staff, fewer inmates, increased use of telehealth and repairs to facilities.
“In short, MDC Brooklyn is safe for inmates and staff,” it says.
Armed police officers stand outside the MDC on Saturday.
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John Lamparski/AFP via Getty Images
New York’s only federal prison – at least for now
The MDC opened in the early 1990s in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, intended to serve as a hub for defendants. It currently houses some 1,300 people, both men and women, according to the BOP.
A 2016 report from the National Association of Women Judges called his conditions “unconscionable,” saying they violated both American Bar Association standards and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
“The absence of fresh, clean air, the complete absence of sunlight, and the absence of outdoor time and activities are immediate problems that BOP has failed to significantly address,” he wrote.
The prison made national headlines in January 2019, when an electrical fire caused a week-long power outage. Its inhabitants found themselves without light or heat during an extremely cold polar vortex, with temperatures as low as 2 degrees Fahrenheit.
A Justice Department investigation later determined that MDC and BOP management “took steps to ensure the safety and security of the installation during the power outage, but failed to effectively manage other critical aspects of the situation,” including addressing medical issues and communicating about the suspension of visits.
The federal government settled a class-action lawsuit on behalf of some 1,600 then-inmates for about $10 million in 2023.
The prison notably housed the first federal inmate to test positive for COVID-19 in March 2020.
During this period, the MDC was one of two federal prisons in New York City. But the federal government closed the other, Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), in August 2021, citing problems — like lax security and crumbling infrastructure — that came to light after the suicide death of Jeffrey Epstein two years earlier.
The MCC population has been transferred to other prisons and remains empty. While its closure at the time was presented as temporary, the Justice Department stated in 2023 that its “future is unknown, as the BOP has not secured sufficient funds to make all necessary repairs.”
