Nicolás Maduro joins an elite club: These are other famous inmates held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been detained at the notorious Brooklyn jail, where conditions have been described as “dangerous”, “barbaric” and “inhumane”.
Following his capture by U.S. forces, ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn - a jail that has housed numerous high-profile inmates and been criticized for its “barbaric” conditions.
In an extraordinary night-time raid in Caracas on Saturday, Maduro was seized and transported to New York, where he has been indicted on drugs and weapons charges. Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, is also among MDC Brooklyn’s newest inhabitants, having likewise been captured and charged by the U.S.
On Monday, the pair both pleaded not guilty at a pre-trial hearing in New York. “I am innocent,” Maduro told the court, per the Associated Press. “I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.”
Notorious jail with “dreadful” conditions
A facility that opened in 1994, MDC Brooklyn holds individuals who are facing federal charges in New York. Per the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, it has a population of 1,336 male and female inmates. Conditions inside the jail have been denounced both by inmates, and the judges tasked with sending pre-trial detainees there.
As is noted by Solitary Watch, a non-profit that seeks to “uncover the truth about solitary confinement and other harsh prison conditions in the United States”, one New York judge complained in August 2024 that MDC Brooklyn has “for some time” been “dangerous” and “barbaric”.
Earlier in 2024, Solitary Watch points out, another judge wrote that court dockets “have been filled with cases in which defendants complain about near perpetual lockdowns (no longer explained by COVID-19), dreadful conditions, and lengthy delays in getting medical care. Contraband - from drugs to cell phones - is widespread. At least four inmates have died by suicide in the past three years.”
Chief among the reasons cited for the jail’s apparently poor conditions, the judge said, was “a severe staffing shortage”.
“We have no clean drinking water”
In October last year, as he awaited sentencing for prostitution-related offenses, the disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs described conditions inside the jail as “inhumane”. Before being transferred to serve his four-year sentence at FCI Fort Dix, a low-security federal prison in New Jersey, Combs spent 14 months at MDC Brooklyn.
In a letter to his trial judge, the 56-year-old wrote: “We have no clean drinking water and we boil our drinking water. We all share one washing machine (which is broken). I am surrounded by drugs and live every day with the constant threat of being stabbed or losing my life.”
What other famous inmates has MDC Brooklyn had?
Along with Maduro and Flores, Combs is one of a number of famous individuals to have been housed inside MDC Brooklyn. Others include:
- Sam Bankman-Fried
In August 2023, FTX founder Bankman-Fried was sent to MDC Brooklyn as he awaited trial on fraud charges. Following his conviction in November 2023, the former cryptocurrency kingpin was sentenced to 25 years behind bars and finally transferred to FCI Terminal Island, a low-security prison in Los Angeles, California.
- R. Kelly
Kelly was detained at MDC Brooklyn before his 2021 conviction on child sex abuse charges. The former singer and producer is now serving a 31-year sentence at FCC Butner, a federal prison in North Carolina.
- Luigi Mangione
Mangione is being held at MDC Brooklyn as he awaits trial on murder charges. The 27-year-old is accused of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of health-insurance company UnitedHealthcare, in Manhattan in December 2024.
- Ghislaine Maxwell
Maxwell was an inmate at MDC Brooklyn ahead of her 2021 conviction for conspiring to sexually abuse minors with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and sex offender who died by apparent suicide in 2019. After being handed a 20-year jail term, Maxwell was transferred to FCI Tallahassee, a low-security federal prison in Florida, before moving to FPC Bryan, a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
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