Rivera Got 10 Years for Secretly Working for Maduro's Venezuela
A federal jury convicted the former congressman of acting as an unregistered foreign agent and laundering proceeds from a $50 million PDVSA contract, a judge sentenced him to 10 years.
David Rivera — Former U.S. Congressman (Florida / federal)
sentencedDavid Rivera represented South Florida in Congress, a seat built on a community that fled communist Venezuela and Cuba. A federal jury found he spent years secretly working for the Venezuelan government those constituents fled, and got paid millions to do it. [S1]
PROOF
U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian sentenced Rivera to 10 years in federal prison. [S1] A federal jury convicted him of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, violating FARA, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and four counts of engaging in transactions in criminally derived property. [S1] Rivera and co-defendant Esther Nuhfer obtained a $50 million contract with a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, to advance the interests of the Venezuelan regime in the U.S. [S1] Without registering as foreign agents, they lobbied U.S. officials including then-U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative Pete Sessions, and arranged meetings between U.S. policymakers and Venezuelan officials including then-President Nicolás Maduro and then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez. [S1] Rivera deposited approximately $1.5 million in proceeds from the contract into his Florida state congressional campaign account between March 2017 and August 2018. [S1] Nuhfer used approximately $455,000 of the proceeds to buy a residence in Key Colony Beach. [S1] Nuhfer was also convicted at trial and was previously sentenced to 60 months in federal prison. [S1]
PUBLIC OPINION
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said Rivera's conduct was "a betrayal" that "cuts especially deep," because Rivera "represented a community shaped by generations of families who fled communist oppression and came to this country seeking freedom," and said 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." [S1] FBI Miami Special Agent in Charge Brett D. Skiles said the sentencing "represents a meaningful step toward restoring public trust in the integrity of our democratic processes." [S1] IRS-CI Acting Special Agent in Charge Charles E. Miller said the case "shows that laundering illicit funds in the United States will not go unchecked." [S1]
BULLSHIT DEFENSE
No response from Rivera or a lawyer representing him appears anywhere in the source material.
A congressman from a community built by people who ran from a government like this one took its money and hid it. That is the whole story.
Sources — 1 article
This piece rests on one official document, not on three independent outlets. It is a filing or release published by the government body bringing the case. Everything here is checkable against it, and nobody else has reported it separately.