Days after former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was arraigned on drug trafficking charges, a dispute erupted in Manhattan federal court over who would be allowed to represent him in the case.
Defense attorney Barry J. Pollack accused lawyer Bruce Fein of trying to join Maduro’s legal team without authorization. Fein, who served as an associate deputy U.S. attorney general during the Ronald Reagan presidency, told U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein that a judge on Friday asked him to help resolve how Maduro wanted to proceed.
Pollack’s challenge became public Thursday when he asked Hellerstein to rescind approval for Fein to join the matter. Pollack said he had not authorized Fein to file paperwork indicating he represented Maduro.
In a written declaration to Hellerstein, Pollack said he attempted to contact Fein by telephone and email to ask on what basis Fein sought to enter an appearance for Maduro and what authorization he had. Pollack said Fein “has not responded.”
Pollack said he spoke to Maduro by phone on Thursday and confirmed that Maduro “does not know Mr. Fein and has not communicated with Mr. Fein, much less retained him, authorized him to enter an appearance, or otherwise hold himself out as representing Mr. Maduro.” Pollack said Maduro authorized him to ask Hellerstein to modify the court docket so it no longer showed Fein as representing Maduro.
Fein told the judge he does not dispute or question the accuracy of Pollack’s assertions. Instead, Fein suggested Hellerstein question Maduro in private to “definitively ascertain President Maduro’s representation wishes,” including whether Maduro wants to be represented by Pollack, Fein or both.
In a letter to Hellerstein, Fein wrote that he had no telephone, video or other direct contact with Maduro, who is being held at a federal jail in Brooklyn. Fein wrote that Maduro “had expressed a desire” for his “assistance in this matter.”
Fein also described Maduro’s apprehension “under extraordinary, startling, and viperlike circumstances,” writing that it involved deprivation of liberty, custodial restrictions on communications, and immediate immersion in a foreign criminal process in a foreign tongue, “fraught with the potential for misunderstandings or miscommunications.”
Pollack was the only lawyer representing Maduro on Monday, as Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he worked with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. Two days earlier, U.S. special forces seized Maduro and Flores from their home in Caracas.