Alvin Hellerstein, Federal Judge Who Oversaw Trump, Maduro and 9/11 Cases, Dies at 92

Alvin K. Hellerstein, a senior federal judge in Manhattan who presided over cases involving President Donald Trump, former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the litigation that followed the September 11 attacks, died on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. He was 92. Edward Friedland, the district executive for the Southern District of New York federal courts, confirmed the death, the Associated Press reported. Reuters also reported the death, citing a published death notice. The Washington Examiner reported that a court notice said Hellerstein died of natural causes.

Hellerstein served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1998, when President Bill Clinton appointed him, until his death. He took senior status in 2011 and kept a full and demanding caseload into his nineties, which Reuters noted was rare among federal judges of his age. His pending cases, including the prosecution of Maduro, are expected to be randomly assigned to other federal judges, Reuters and the Washington Examiner reported.

The Maduro case

Hellerstein was presiding over the federal criminal case against Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Maduro was captured earlier this year in a United States military raid in Caracas and brought to New York to face narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, with torture charges added later. Just two weeks before his death, Hellerstein presided over the arraignment of Maduro and Flores on the added torture charges. At the arraignment, Maduro twice declined to enter a plea when asked, and Hellerstein said a plea of not guilty would be entered on his behalf, the Associated Press reported. He had scheduled the trial for June 2027. At a bail hearing for Flores on October 8, Hellerstein told lawyers he had a voice problem but would keep going as long as they could hear him, and he remained set on presiding over the trial.

Trump, September 11 and a long docket

In August 2026, Hellerstein again rejected President Trump's effort to move his New York hush money case to federal court and have the conviction dismissed on presidential immunity grounds. It was the third time he denied such a removal request. In that ruling he wrote: "The grounds for a second removal cited by Defendant, Donald J. Trump, are neither new nor legally sufficient."

His longest running work followed the September 11, 2001 attacks. For more than two decades he oversaw dozens of wrongful death, personal injury and property damage lawsuits arising from the attacks, and lawyers who appeared before him said he spent hours with victims and their families and refused settlement offers he considered inadequate. His docket also included a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and the fraud trials of businesswoman Charlie Javice and investor Bill Hwang, Bloomberg Law reported. In 2015 he ordered the United States government to release photographs depicting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, Agence France-Presse reported. Last year he presided over a trial in which a jury found that the work of French bank BNP Paribas in Sudan had helped support the regime of Omar al-Bashir, awarding 20.75 million dollars to three Sudanese plaintiffs, the Associated Press reported.

A New York legal career

Hellerstein was born on December 28, 1933, in New York City. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Columbia University, where he edited the Columbia Law Review. He served as a first lieutenant in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps and then spent close to four decades in private practice at the firm Stroock and Stroock and Lavan, where he co-led its litigation group. President Clinton nominated him in 1998 and the Senate confirmed him that October.