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

Alvin K. Hellerstein, a federal judge in Manhattan who handled cases involving President Donald Trump, former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the September 11 attacks, has died. He was 92.

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

Hellerstein was still active on a major case shortly before his death. About two weeks ago, he presided over a 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 served as a district judge until taking senior status in 2011. Before becoming a judge, he worked in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps and as a litigator in Manhattan.

Much of his legacy rests on his handling of litigation that followed the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. He oversaw dozens of lawsuits over wrongful death, injury and property damage, an effort that stretched across two decades. Some of his former clients were killed in the attack, and lawyers say he showed deep empathy toward victims and their families, meeting with them for hours in his chambers and rejecting settlement offers he considered too low. Others were dismayed in 2008, when he ended an effort to force New York City to continue searching for human remains in debris moved from ground zero to a Staten Island landfill.

Known for an independent streak and strict discipline in his courtroom, Hellerstein required spectators to wear pandemic-era masks for more than two years after other judges had dropped the practice.

In August, in one of his last significant rulings, he again rejected Trump's attempt to erase his hush money conviction. The president had sought to move the state court case to federal court and have it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds. It was the third time Hellerstein denied a request to move the case. He first did so after Trump's March 2023 indictment, and again after Trump's May 2024 conviction and a later U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

The latest ruling came after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered him to reconsider. That court found he had erred by not weighing "important issues relevant" to Trump's request, though it said it "express[ed] no view" on how he should rule.

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

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