A veteran federal prosecutor who has worked on the U.S. criminal case against Nicolás Maduro since its earliest stages has left the Southern District of New York, less than nine months before the Venezuelan leader is scheduled to stand trial on sweeping narcotics and weapons charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason A. Richman asked U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein to formally terminate his appearance in United States v. Maduro Moros after leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York on Sept. 25, according to a court filing.
The one-page filing, docketed as document 334 in the long-running federal case, does not provide a reason for Richman's departure from the office or disclose his next professional move. It also does not indicate that his exit resulted from a disagreement over the prosecution or that the government is seeking to delay the case.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are currently scheduled to go to trial June 1, 2027, before Hellerstein in Manhattan. Both have pleaded not guilty. The charges against Maduro include narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy and weapons offenses.
Richman's departure is notable because of his history with the case.
When the Justice Department first announced charges against Maduro and other current and former Venezuelan officials in March 2020, it identified Richman alongside Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda L. Houle, Matthew J. Laroche and Kyle A. Wirshba as prosecutors handling the case for the Southern District of New York.
The original prosecution accused Maduro and others of participating in a decades-long conspiracy involving cocaine trafficking and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Maduro has denied the U.S. allegations.
Richman also built extensive experience prosecuting major international narcotics cases involving senior political figures in Latin America.
His name appeared in federal cases involving former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández; Hernández's brother, former congressman Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernández; former Honduran police chief Juan Carlos "El Tigre" Bonilla; and convicted drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez.
His departure therefore removes from the Maduro prosecution a lawyer with years of institutional knowledge about both the case and the broader narcotics investigations that preceded it.
But the filing does not show that the prosecution itself is unraveling.
The Southern District of New York remains responsible for the case, and Richman's request merely asks the court to remove him individually from the docket because he is no longer employed by the U.S. Attorney's Office. It does not state that the case has been left without prosecutors or that the June trial date has changed.
The personnel change comes as Maduro's attorneys are mounting a major challenge to the prosecution itself.
On Sept. 2, his defense asked Hellerstein to dismiss the indictment, arguing, among other things, that Maduro is entitled to head-of-state immunity. Prosecutors were given until Oct. 2 to respond, and a hearing on the motion is scheduled for Nov. 17.
The June 1 trial date remains on the court calendar, subject to the resolution of those pretrial challenges.
The legal fight follows an extraordinary turn in a criminal case that had remained largely theoretical for years. The Justice Department originally indicted Maduro in 2020. A superseding indictment was unsealed after U.S. forces seized him in Caracas on Jan. 3, 2026 and brought him into federal custody. Maduro appeared in federal court in New York two days later and pleaded not guilty.
Flores is also fighting aspects of her detention. Her attorneys have sought her release to house arrest, with a hearing currently scheduled for Oct. 8.
