Politics 5 min read By Alice Ashford
Former US congressman David Rivera jailed for 10 years over secret $50m Venezuela lobbying
David Rivera, a former Republican congressman from Miami, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for concealing a $50 million lobbying campaign on behalf of Nicolás Maduro's Venezuelan government during the first Trump administration.
David Rivera, a former Republican congressman from Miami, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for concealing a $50 million lobbying campaign on behalf of Venezuela's government under Nicolás Maduro. The sentence was handed down on Friday by Judge Melissa Damian, who told the court that Rivera had betrayed his life's mission as an anti-communist campaigner.
Rivera, 61, has been held in custody since his conviction in May on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent. He appeared expressionless as the judge said his friends in Miami would judge him harshly had the money come from Cuba's communist government rather than its allies in Caracas. «Nobody would accept that's ok and I don't think this is different,» Damian said. «There's no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime.»
The case offered a rare view of foreign influence operations aimed at shaping US policy towards Latin America, and underscored Miami's reputation as a magnet for both anti-communist activists and corruption within its large exile community. Rivera was charged in 2022 under the Biden administration. Prosecutions for illegal foreign lobbying have fallen sharply since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Prosecutors said Rivera was recruited by Maduro's foreign minister, Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela's acting president — to persuade the first Trump administration to normalise relations with Caracas. Working with co-defendant Esther Nuhfer, a political consultant, Rivera sought to influence friends including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. Both testified that Rivera never mentioned his consulting contract with a US-based affiliate of Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA. Nuhfer received a five-year sentence.
«The United States and the public were the true victims of this fraud,» said Assistant US Attorney Roger Cruz. «He used his position of trust — and betrayed it consistently and repeatedly.»
Trial evidence showed Rivera 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 later charged in the US with bribing senior Venezuelan officials. Group members used code words: Maduro was the «bus driver», Sessions «Sombrero», Rodríguez «The Lady in Red», and payments «La Luz», Spanish for «The Light». Rubio was known as «Miss Clairol» because rubio means blond in Spanish.
Defence lawyers argued that Rivera believed he had no disclosure obligation. They said the three-month, $50 million contract with his one-man consulting firm focused on luring ExxonMobil back to Venezuela — commercial work generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act. «David Rivera does not deserve to die in prison because he failed to file a FARA registration,» said defence attorney Ed Shohat. The judge disagreed. «This is a serious offence. It's not about not filing a piece of paper.»
Prosecutors said Rivera used the PDV USA contract as cover for illegal lobbying and tried to hide it by backdating documents and creating sham agreements, including one to justify a $3.75 million wire transfer to a South Florida company maintaining Gorrín's luxury yacht. While arranging meetings for Rodríguez in New York, Caracas, Washington and Dallas, Rivera involved Sessions, who later tried to broker a meeting for Rodríguez with the ExxonMobil executive who became CEO when Rex Tillerson left to serve as Trump's first-term secretary of state.
The outreach unravelled within six months of Trump taking office, when he sanctioned Maduro, labelled him a «dictator» and launched a «maximum pressure» campaign to unseat him.
In an emotional 20-minute address, Rivera traced his journey from a childhood without a father in an immigrant Miami neighbourhood to Congress, saying he had always fought «the good cause». Holding back tears, he begged for leniency, telling the judge that a long sentence would amount to a «death sentence» given his age and lingering effects from prostate cancer.
Rivera's lawyers have applied for a presidential pardon and plan to appeal while defending him against a related foreign lobbying case in Washington, DC. Judge Damian has yet to rule on the government's request that Rivera forfeit $20 million in criminal proceeds. Before serving in Congress from 2011 to 2013, Rivera was a senior Florida legislator and shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio, who later became Florida House speaker.
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