A Miami federal jury on Friday convicted former Florida Rep. David Rivera of conspiracy and related crimes tied to a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign conducted on behalf of the Venezuelan government. Jurors found Rivera and his associate, Esther Nuhfer, guilty on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of their work for former President Nicolás Maduro's government. The case reached trial after a years-long investigation into covert foreign influence operations targeting U.S. policymakers. The surviving charges at trial encompassed conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act [1][2].
Prosecutors presented evidence during the five-week trial that Venezuela's state-run oil company had hired Rivera's consulting firm in 2017 and 2018 to ease tensions between the two countries and end U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified that Rivera did not disclose he had a contract with oil refiner Citgo, a U.S. subsidiary of Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, when he took a meeting with Rivera about Venezuela in 2017, while Rubio was then a U.S. senator. Defense counsel argued that Rivera and Nuhfer acted in good faith and believed they were not required to disclose their work, and maintained that the contract applied only to commercial work to bring ExxonMobil back to Venezuela, which would typically not require FARA registration. Prosecutors countered by pointing to private communications in which Nuhfer had drafted FARA disclosure letters, undercutting the good-faith defense [2].
Prosecutors said Rivera was paid $20 million by the U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned company. Prosecutors had alleged that Rivera received a secret $50 million contract to influence the first Trump administration. Rivera had been out on bond, but Judge Melissa Damian ordered him taken into custody, finding that he posed a flight risk because he has access to sizable funds and faces a potentially long prison sentence. Prosecutors argued that Rivera posed a flight risk due to the seriousness of the charges and his significant financial resources. No sentencing date has been publicly announced.
Rivera represented southern Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013. FARA requires agents of foreign principals who engage in political activities to disclose their relationship with those entities and details of their work; the law was enacted in 1938 to prevent covert foreign influence in U.S. politics. The conviction represents one of the most prominent FARA prosecutions of a former federal legislator and comes as the Justice Department has pursued an elevated number of foreign-influence enforcement actions. No post-trial motions have been reported, and the defense had not filed a notice of appeal as of the verdict date [1][2][3].
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