Former Miami congressman David Rivera, a longtime friend of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for his role in a covert $50 million lobbying campaign carried out on behalf of Venezuela during the first Trump administration.
Rivera, a Republican, has been jailed since a jury convicted him in May on every count, including failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiring to launder money while working for the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The 61-year-old Rivera sat stone-faced as Judge Melissa Damian condemned what she described as a betrayal of his life’s mission. She said many of Rivera’s friends would have judged him far more harshly if the millions had come from Cuba’s government rather than its allies in Caracas.
“Nobody would accept that’s OK, and I don’t think this is different,” the judge said. “There’s no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime.”
The seven-week trial provided a rare look at Miami’s role as a hub for foreign influence campaigns seeking to shape US policy toward Latin America. It also underscored the city’s reputation as a center for anti-communist activism — and corruption — within its large exile community.
Testimony came from President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas and a prominent Washington lobbyist. Each said they felt betrayed after learning about Rivera’s enormous consulting agreement with a US-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.
Rivera’s attorneys plan to appeal the conviction and applied for a presidential pardon in June. He also faces additional federal charges in Washington, DC, stemming from a related foreign lobbying case.
Prosecutors said betrayal featured coded figures — ‘Sombrero’ and ‘Miss Clairol’
According to an indictment unsealed in 2022, then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela’s acting president — recruited Rivera to use his Republican connections to persuade the first Trump administration to soften its hard-line policy and lift crippling sanctions on Venezuela.
As part of that effort, Rivera and co-defendant Esther Nuhfer, a political consultant, tried to influence prominent contacts including Rubio and Sessions. Prosecutors said they sought to normalize relations with the incoming Trump administration even as Maduro’s government faced sanctions over serious human rights allegations.
Prosecutors argued that Rivera and Nuhfer concealed their lobbying because disclosure would have damaged Rivera’s political career as a prominent anti-communist figure.
“The United States and the public were the true victims of this fraud,” Assistant US Attorney Roger Cruz said while pressing for a severe sentence. “He used his position of trust — and betrayed it consistently and repeatedly.”
Prosecutors also said Rivera tried to conceal his activities through an encrypted chat group called MIA, short for Miami. His principal link to the Maduro government was Venezuelan media tycoon Raúl Gorrín, who was later charged in the US with bribing senior Venezuelan officials.
Participants used playful aliases to discuss their work, according to text messages shown to jurors. Maduro was called the “bus driver,” Sessions was “Sombrero,” Rodríguez was “The Lady in Red” and the payments were “La Luz,” Spanish for “The Light.” Rubio was identified as “Miss Clairol,” a reference to the Spanish meaning of “rubio,” or blond.
Defense said only missing paperwork made the $50 million contract illegal
At Friday’s sentencing hearing, Rivera’s lawyers repeated their trial argument that he did not believe the law required him to disclose the work.
They said the three-month, $50 million agreement with Rivera’s one-person consulting firm was intended to persuade oil giant ExxonMobil to return to Venezuela — commercial activity that is 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,” defense attorney Ed Shohat told the court. “If he had filed that paper, that form, everything he did, including the $50 million contract, which totally distorted this case, is perfectly legal.”
The defense maintained that Rivera’s consulting work was separate from his meetings with Rubio and Sessions. Those discussions, the attorneys said, focused on bringing to power a Venezuelan leadership less hostile to the US — not on helping Maduro normalize relations with Washington.
MORE STORY: VIDEO: Shocking Plane Attack: Co-Pilot Stabs Captain, 174 Survive!
“There’s not one word in any chat, not one document, not one thing he did to help Nicolás Maduro,” Shohat said.
Prosecutors countered that Rivera used the agreement with New York-based PDV USA, an affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, as a cover for illegal lobbying.
“This is a classic money laundering case,” Damian said Friday as she rejected Rivera’s request to reduce the federal sentencing-guidelines range.
Where did the money go? A luxury yacht, among other things
The partners tried to hide the work — backdating documents and coming up with sham agreements, like one to justify a wire transfer of $3.75 million to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín’s luxury yacht, prosecutors said.
The political activity included setting up meetings for Rodríguez in New York, Caracas, Washington and Dallas.
As part of the effort, Rivera roped in Sessions, who later tried to broker a meeting for Rodríguez with the ExxonMobil executive who took over as CEO when Rex Tillerson became Trump’s first-term secretary of state.
After a secret meeting in Caracas with Maduro, Sessions also agreed to deliver a letter from the Venezuelan president to Trump.
The outreach quickly unraveled, however. Within six months of taking office, Trump sanctioned Maduro and labeled him a “dictator,” launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to unseat the president.
And now, nearly a decade later, Rodríguez has emerged as the second Trump administration’s trusted partner after the US military’s ousting of Maduro.
Rubio’s former housemate faced scandal before, but Cuban Americans support him
Before being elected to Congress in 2010, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida legislator and shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio, who eventually became the Florida House speaker.
Rivera faced earlier controversy, including allegations that he secretly funded a Democratic spoiler candidate in a 2012 congressional race.
Last year, federal prosecutors dropped that case after an appeals court threw out a sizable fine imposed by a lower court.
Rivera was also investigated — but never charged — for alleged campaign finance violations and a $1 million contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida Legislature.
Despite all that, Rivera remains popular among Miami’s Cuban American establishment.
Friends of the former congressman, including the former president of Florida International University and Miami-Dade County’s supervisor of elections, packed the courtroom to show their support.
Sessions, in a letter seeking leniency that was read into the record by his chief of staff, said his former congressional colleague devoted decades to public service, much of it focused on defending liberty and democracy.
“I don’t think it’s productive for society by sending David away for a long, long time,” testified Liliana Ros, a longtime Miami GOP committee member.
