By AFP
January 6, 2026
Lawyer Barry Pollack is representing deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro - Copyright AFP/File Yuichi YAMAZAKI
The lawyer defending deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is a veteran trial attorney who previously represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Barry Pollack, 61, appeared beside Maduro during his arraignment in a New York courtroom on Monday on drug trafficking and other charges.
Maduro pleaded not guilty and it will be up to Pollack to try to convince a federal jury to render that verdict when the case eventually goes to trial.
The next hearing has been set for March 17.
A graduate of Georgetown University law school, Pollack is a partner in Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler LLP, a boutique New York law firm, and a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Law firm research guide Chambers USA describes him as a “thorough and deep-thinking lawyer” who “lives, breathes and sleeps trials, and has such a natural way in front of juries.”
In 2024, Pollack secured the release of Assange from a British prison after negotiating a plea deal with the US Justice Department that saw the Australian plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act by unlawfully disclosing national defense material.
In another high-profile case, Pollack obtained the acquittal of a former Enron accountant who was facing criminal fraud charges stemming from the collapse of the energy giant.
Another prominent case involved a New York man who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents when he was a teenager and spent 17 years in prison.
Pollack managed to get the charges dismissed and secured his freedom.
Pollack gave a hint of his defense strategy during Monday’s brief arraignment of Maduro before District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, questioning the “legality of his abduction” by the US military.
92-year-old US judge presiding over Maduro case
By AFP
January 5, 2026
The Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse in New York where Nicolas Maduro was brought for his arraignment before Judge Alvin Hellerstein - Copyright GETTY IMAGES/AFP Michael M. Santiago
Alvin Hellerstein, the 92-year-old US judge handling the case against deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, has presided over a number of notable trials during his decades on the bench.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, made their first appearance in Hellerstein’s Manhattan courtroom on Monday, pleading not guilty to narco-terrorism and other charges.
Maduro was indicted in 2020 in a sprawling drug trafficking case that has been before Hellerstein for nearly 15 years and has already seen the conviction of Venezuela’s former intelligence chief, Hugo Armando Carvajal.
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 former president Bill Clinton in 1998 to be a district court judge for the Southern District of New York.
During his lengthy career, Hellerstein has presided over several civil cases stemming from the September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.
He has also tangled at times with Donald Trump, rejecting a request by the president to have his New York hush money case moved to federal court.
Hellerstein also blocked the Trump administration last year from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without a court hearing.
In September, he sentenced tech start-up highflier Charlie Javice to more than seven years in prison after she was convicted of defrauding JPMorgan Chase on a $175 million deal.
In another high-profile fraud case, Hellerstein sentenced Bill Hwang, the founder of US investment firm Archegos Capital Management, to 18 years in prison.
He also presided over the trial last year in which a jury found 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.
In a noteworthy 2015 ruling, Hellerstein ordered the US government to release a trove of photos depicting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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