Federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, who oversaw Maduro case, dies at 92; replacement to be chosen

NEW YORK -- Alvin K. Hellerstein, a Manhattan federal judge who presided over matters involving President Donald Trump, former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the 9/11 attacks during nearly three decades on the bench, has died. He was 92.

Hellerstein died Wednesday, according to Edward Friedland, district executive for the Southern District of New York federal courts. No cause of death was immediately provided.

Only two weeks ago, Hellerstein presided over a Manhattan hearing in the ongoing narco-terrorism conspiracy prosecution of Maduro, who was captured earlier this year in a surprise raid.

President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, appointed Hellerstein to the federal bench in 1998. He was a district judge until he moved to senior status in 2011. Before that, Hellerstein served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps and was a Manhattan litigator.

In the aftermath of the 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center, Hellerstein presided over dozens of wrongful death, injury and property damage lawsuits — a two-decade-long effort that shaped his legacy on the bench.

Some of the judge's former clients died in the attack and, lawyers say, he showed great empathy to victims and their families, meeting with them for hours in his chambers and rejecting what he felt were low-ball settlement offers.

Others were dismayed when, in 2008, Hellerstein ended an effort to force New York City government to keep searching for human remains in debris moved from ground zero to a Staten Island landfill.

Hellerstein, known for a quirky independent streak and strict discipline in his courtroom, insisted spectators wear pandemic-era masks for more than two years after other judges stopped the practice.

In August, in one of his last significant rulings, Hellerstein again spurned Trump's effort to erase his hush money conviction, rejecting the president's bid to move the state court case to federal court and have it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.

It was the third time Hellerstein denied Trump's requests to move the case. The first time was after Trump's March 2023 indictment; the second followed Trump's May 2024 conviction and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

Hellerstein's latest ruling against Trump came after an appeals court ordered him to reconsider his prior decision. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Hellerstein erred by failing to consider "important issues relevant" to the president's request. However, the appeals court judges said they "express no view" on how Hellerstein should rule.

In 2020, Hellerstein ordered Trump's estranged former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen released from prison after the Justice Department revoked his home confinement to thwart his efforts to publish a book or talk to the media. The government's action, he ruled, was retaliatory and a First Amendment violation.

In 2015, Hellerstein made headlines when he ordered a New York City cable company to pay a Texas woman $229,500 for flooding her phone with 153 robocalls.