Oscar Rivero, the developer at the center of Miami's affordable housing scandal, will serve 21 months in prison after pleading guilty Friday to one count of grand theft.
The local attorney admitted using $700,000 in Miami-Dade County housing money to buy a house for himself in South Miami. Rivero has agreed to cooperate in other investigations of affordable housing developers.
Rivero's sentence could be reduced if prosecutors determine that he has concrete evidence for them. He also must serve one year of probation and must build six affordable homes with Habitat for Humanity.
Rivero is the first of three developers arrested in the wake of The Miami Herald's House of Lies series that exposed massive wrongdoing in the county's housing agency.
He was arrested in 2006 on charges he spent at least $736,000 in public money -- intended to pay for 54 houses for poor seniors in Little Havana -- to buy himself the South Miami house.
