A former Florida congressman will spend a decade in federal prison for secretly lobbying on behalf of Venezuela’s government and laundering millions of dollars tied to the work, according to the Daily Wire.
Former Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian, roughly a month after a federal jury in Miami convicted him in May on charges of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and four counts involving transactions with criminally derived property. Rivera, 61, had served a single term in the House after winning election in November 2010, losing his bid for reelection two years later. He was indicted in 2022.
A Case Built on a $50 Million Contract
At the center of the prosecution, according to the Department of Justice, was a $50 million consulting contract that Rivera and co-defendant Esther Nuhfer secured with a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the country’s state-owned oil company. Prosecutors said the pair worked to advance the interests of the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro without registering as foreign agents, as federal law requires.
Trial evidence showed Rivera and Nuhfer lobbied U.S. officials — among them then-Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Pete Sessions — and arranged meetings between American policymakers and senior Venezuelan officials, including Maduro and then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez. The two also used coded language in text messages in an effort to obscure what they were doing, according to the evidence presented at trial.
Between March 2017 and August 2018, Rivera directed $1.5 million from the contract into his own campaign account, the Justice Department said.
Prosecutors: ‘Foreign Influence in America Cannot Operate in the Shadows’
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the top federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida, framed the sentence as a message about the limits of covert foreign lobbying.
“Foreign influence in America cannot operate in the shadows,” Quiñones said, adding that the betrayal was particularly painful given the district Rivera once represented — a South Florida community shaped by generations of families who fled communist oppression. Quiñones noted that Rivera knew that history and what those constituents had endured, yet the jury found that “for millions of dollars, he secretly used the access and relationships entrusted to him to advance the interests of the Maduro regime.”
The FBI’s Miami Field Office also weighed in after the sentencing. Special Agent in Charge Brett D. Skiles called the outcome “a meaningful step toward restoring public trust in the integrity of our democratic processes” and pointed to the collaboration among federal partners that produced the case.
“No attempt to conceal unlawful conduct will remain beyond the FBI’s reach,” Skiles said.
A Career That Ended at One Term — and a Legal Fight That Ran for Years
Rivera’s path from the House to federal prison followed a lengthy investigation. Elected in the 2010 Republican wave, he represented a Miami-area district for a single term before voters turned him out in 2012. A decade later, federal prosecutors charged him over the Venezuela arrangement.
The conviction marks a rare instance of a former member of Congress found guilty of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government while simultaneously laundering the proceeds — a combination of charges that carries substantial prison time. The Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, requires people who lobby or otherwise work on behalf of foreign governments and political entities to disclose that relationship to the Justice Department. Violations of the law are prosecuted relatively infrequently, though the statute has drawn renewed attention in recent years.
Rivera’s co-defendant, Nuhfer, faced charges alongside him in the same scheme. Details of her case were not included in the sentencing account.
The sentence was imposed by Judge Damian in the Southern District of Florida, where the case was brought. It was not immediately clear whether Rivera intends to appeal.
For the Maduro government, the case represents another entanglement with U.S. law enforcement at a time when Washington and Caracas remain at odds over sanctions, oil policy, and the treatment of political opponents. For federal prosecutors in Miami, it is a reminder — in the words of the U.S. attorney — that the community Rivera once served has a long memory when it comes to those who work against the freedoms their families came here to find.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/ex-congressman-headed-to-the-slammer-for-working-with-commies