New York — Judge Alvin Hellerstein, the 92-year-old US federal judge presiding over the drug trafficking case against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, has died, according to an official at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, where he served.

Questions Over Fitness for Prolonged Trial

As one of the oldest serving US federal judges, questions had been raised about whether Hellerstein was the right justice to preside over what could be a prolonged trial for Maduro on drug trafficking charges. He had handled the sprawling case for over a decade, a period that already saw the conviction of Venezuela’s former intelligence chief, Hugo Armando Carvajal.

Maduro was seized by US forces in January in a military raid on his compound in Venezuela.

A Career Spanning Landmark Cases

Hellerstein’s lengthy career included overseeing the civil cases arising from Al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, often rejecting settlements he viewed as unfair to complainants.

He also clashed with Donald Trump, rejecting a request by the US president to have his New York hush money case moved to federal court. Last year, he blocked the Trump administration from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without a court hearing.

In a noteworthy 2015 ruling, Hellerstein ordered the US government to release a trove of photos depicting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also presided over a trial last year in which a jury found that French banking giant BNP Paribas’s work in Sudan had helped prop up the regime of former ruler Omar al-Bashir, awarding $20.75 million in damages to three plaintiffs from Sudan.

Background

A graduate of Columbia University Law School, Hellerstein served as a lawyer in the US Army from 1957 to 1960 before entering private practice. He was nominated by then-president Bill Clinton in 1998 to be a district court judge for the Southern District of New York.