This is what Nicolás Maduro eats in jail while awaiting his trial in New York
Nicolás Maduro is in the controversial Metropolitan Detention Center, one of the largest federal prisons in the country.
Nicolás Maduro faces harsh conditions while awaiting trial. The Venezuelan president is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York, one of the largest federal prisons in the United States. In recent years, the facility has housed several high-profile inmates, including Luigi Mangione, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and R. Kelly.
Beyond the notoriety of its inmates, the Metropolitan Detention Center has repeatedly made headlines for controversy. The facility has been criticised for poor conditions and chronic mismanagement, with reported incidents ranging from stabbings to murders on the property. In addition to violence, the prison has a documented history of medical negligence, as well as human and civil rights violations.
Earlier this year, The Legal Aid Society condemned the decision by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to use the Metropolitan Detention Center to detain undocumented immigrants. The organisation highlighted severe deficiencies at the facility, including winter heating outages, worm-infested food, inadequate medical care, and widespread violence linked to chronic understaffing.
The precise conditions Maduro is facing inside the detention centre have not been disclosed. However, an image allegedly showing his prison meal has been circulating on social media. Marshall S. Billingslea, a former US official, shared a photograph of a tray containing what appears to be a standard meal in the US prison system.
Although Billingslea did not provide further context or confirm that the food shown was served to Maduro, several users on the social media platform X interpreted the post as depicting the menu he would receive. The image shows a brown tray with white rice, boiled sausages, vegetables, two slices of sandwich bread, a piece of bread resembling cornbread, and a packet of tomato sauce.
Maduro has been charged with four counts: narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. According to the indictment released by the Department of Justice, Maduro “transported cocaine shipments under the protection of Venezuelan law enforcement”.
— Marshall S. Billingslea (@M_S_Billingslea) January 4, 2026
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In addition, the US government accuses him of providing Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers, facilitating diplomatic cover for planes transporting drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela, and allowing cocaine-fuelled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and that of their families.
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