MIAMI (AP):
A former Miami congressman and longtime friend of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison in connection with a secret US$50 million lobbying campaign on Venezuela’s behalf during the first Trump administration.
Republican David Rivera has been jailed since jurors found him guilty in May on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of his work for former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ’s government.
Rivera, 61, appeared stone-faced as Judge Melissa Damian denounced him for betraying his life’s mission, saying he would surely have been judged as such by his many friends had the millions of dollars he received come from the Cuban regime instead of its allies in Caracas.
“Nobody would accept that’s okay and I don’t think this is different,” said Damian. “There’s no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime.”
The seven-week trial offered a rare glimpse into Miami’s role as a crossroads for foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping US policy toward Latin America, highlighting the city’s reputation as a magnet for both anti-communist crusaders and corruption among its sizable exile population.
It included testimony from President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Rep Pete Sessions of Texas and a top Washington lobbyist – all of whom testified they felt betrayed when learning of Rivera’s mammoth consulting contract with a US-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.
Attorneys for Rivera plan to appeal and, in June, applied for a presidential pardon. Rivera faces additional federal charges in Washington, DC, in a related foreign lobbying case.
In an indictment unsealed in 2022, prosecutors alleged that Rivera was tapped by then Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez – now Venezuela’s acting president – to work Republican connections to get the first Trump administration to abandon its hard line and crippling sanctions on Venezuela.
As part of the charm offensive, Rivera and a co-defendant, political consultant Esther Nuhfer, sought to manipulate influential friends, including Rubio and Sessions. Their goal was to normalise relations with the new Trump administration even as the Maduro government faced sanctions over serious accusations of human rights violations.
But Rivera and Nuhfer didn’t disclose their lobbying work as required, for fear it would have ended Rivera’s political career as an anti-communist stalwart, prosecutors argued at trial.
“The United States and the public were the true victims of this fraud,” Assistant US Attorney Roger Cruz said in urging a stiff sentence. “He used his position of trust – and betrayed it consistently and repeatedly.”
To hide his work, prosecutors allege, Rivera also set up an encrypted chat group called MIA – for Miami – with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media tycoon Raúl Gorrín, who was subsequently charged in the US with bribing top Venezuelan officials.
Members of the group used playful code words to discuss their activities: Maduro was the “bus driver,” Sessions “Sombrero”, Rodríguez “The Lady in Red,” and their windfall payments “La Luz”, Spanish for “The Light”, according to copies of text messages presented to the jury. Rubio was known as “Miss Clairol”, because rubio means blond in Spanish.
