Alvin K. Hellerstein, the senior federal judge who was overseeing the prosecution of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, died on Wednesday. He was 92.
The death of the senior federal judge, who has presided over several high-profile cases, was confirmed to The New York Times by Ed Friedland, the district executive for the Southern District of New York.
Hellerstein, who was appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton in 1998, served in the Southern District of New York for nearly three decades.
The Maduro drug trafficking case, along with other cases Hellerstein had been overseeing, will be randomly assigned to another federal judge, Friedland told Politico. Maduro’s trial on narco-terrorism and drug trafficking is scheduled to begin in June 2027, the Times reported.
Hellerstein graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia College in New York City in 1954. He graduated two years later from the Columbia Law School.
He had a private practice from 1960 until he was appointed to the bench by Clinton in 1998.
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