Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro could make a court appearance in New York City as soon as Monday, two sources told NBC News, after the United States captured him in a surprise attack early today and flew him to New York.
After having landed at a New York airport, Maduro was scheduled to be taken by helicopter to a location in New York City to be processed, then transferred to the detention center, two sources said.
Federal law enforcement personnel stood watch outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn late Saturday.
The federal jail where Maduro is expected to be held pre-trial has had several high-profile recent inmates.
Sean “Diddy” Combs was jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, known as MDC for short, for a little more than a year before he was sentenced to over four years in federal prison in October.
The captured Venezuelan leader will be in the same facility that has housed other well-known criminal suspects, including Luigi Mangione. News 4’s Melissa Colorado looks at the charges Maduro faces.
Currently jailed at MDC is Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in what federal prosecutors have called a cold-blooded targeted killing.
Cryptocurrency exchange FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, now serving 25 years in prison after being convicted of fraud, also was jailed at the MDC.
On a media call Saturday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Trump administration has not responded to his and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries’ request for a so-called Gang of Eight briefing and a full congressional briefing.
“We want to know the administration’s objectives, its plans to prevent a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster that plunges us into another endless war,” Schumer told reporters.
Schumer, who said he has not been briefed, said Congress has been kept “in the total dark.”
“Congress should not be sidelined as the Trump administration gets sucked into another nation-building quagmire, and we’re going to hold them accountable,” he said.