A federal judge has rejected attorney Bruce Fein's bid to join the legal team representing former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro against charges in a long running drug conspiracy.

Nicolás Maduro’s first court hearing — a heavily secured spectacle where he proclaimed he is still Venezuela’s president and pleaded “soy inocente” — was merely the beginning of a legal odyssey that could keep him locked up and out of power for years, maybe even the rest of his life.