Judge: Ex-Miami Rep. Rivera must finally pay penalty for election violations. It’s six figures
A decade ago, when he was in his political prime, then-Republican U.S. Rep. David Rivera secretly funneled almost $76,000 in campaign donations to a novice primary candidate running against Rivera’s likely Democratic challenger in Miami-Dade County.
Rivera, who ultimately lost the congressional race in 2012, must now pay six times that amount — $456,000 — in a civil penalty to the U.S. government after a federal judge found he violated campaign finance laws by “making contributions in the name of another” person.
The judge has issued a final order in his long-running dispute with the Federal Election Commission, which had filed a lawsuit against him in July 2017.
The judge’s scathing order may be the least of the one-time politician’s worries. Rivera’s consulting firm has been sued by the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-run oil company for pocketing $15 million in fees amid accusations of performing little work. Rivera also has been under criminal investigation by Miami federal prosecutors in connection with that consulting arrangement.
READ MORE: Former Congressman Rivera paid millions for consulting by Venezuelan oil firm, suit says
Rivera, 56, could not be reached for comment, after a Miami Herald reporter tried to contact him by phone and text messages. His defense attorney in the FEC case, Jeffrey Feldman, declined to comment for this story.
In declaring Rivera must pay the civil penalty, U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Cooke also required him to cover $927 in court costs for his “repeated failure” to show up for depositions in the FEC case.
In the end, Cooke rejected Rivera’s final bid to get the FEC’s civil case dismissed. Rivera claimed the agency did not have jurisdiction to pursue its campaign violations claim because the five-year statute of limitations had expired long ago and he was not properly notified before the lawsuit was filed.
‘Smacks of hypocrisy’
“It is disingenuous and smacks of hypocrisy that Defendant David Rivera — a former U.S. Congressman — now insists that the court conveniently ignore his multiple discrete violations of a federal law in favor of his strained reading of a statute of limitations and his interpretation of the FEC’s claims against him,” Cooke wrote in a 12-page order issued last week.
Cooke also noted that Rivera’s assertions that he didn’t receive the FEC’s letters and emails notifying him of the campaign finance violations “lack credibility.”
The judge found that Rivera has the money to pay the fine and also issued a permanent injunction to further prevent him from breaking campaign finance law in the future since he continued to run for office after losing the 2012 race for Florida’s 26th Congressional District to Democrat Joe Garcia.
Her order was the final development in a five-year legal battle between Rivera and the Federal Election Commission, which began after the FEC sued him over unreported money Rivera and Ana Alliegro, a GOP political consultant, used in 2012 to prop up straw candidate Justin Lamar Sternad against Garcia in the Democratic primary.
Sternad and Alliegro ultimately were convicted of criminal charges for their roles in the scheme and served short prison sentences — 30 days and six months, respectively. However, Rivera managed to avoid criminal punishment, mainly because the U.S. Attorney’s Office was concerned about relying on Rivera’s friend, Alliegro, as a witness against the politician.
Asked whether Rivera was directly involved in the scheme, Sternad’s defense attorney, Rick Yabor, told the Miami Herald on Friday about a telling exchange between a federal judge and a prosecutor when Alliegro pleaded guilty in August 2014. After some prodding, the prosecutor revealed Rivera’s name as “co-conspirator A.”
“I think the prosecutor’s comment speaks for itself,” Yabor told the Herald.
At Alliegro’s plea hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert Scola asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Mulvihill why he was not naming the co-conspirator. “We’re past that time,” the judge said. Mulvihill pointed out that U.S. Justice Department policy forbids prosecutors from naming unindicted co-conspirators. But under pressure from the judge, Mulvihill made the first of six direct mentions of Rivera.
Prosecutor names Rivera
“In early April 2012, the defendant, Ana Alliegro, met at the Catch of the Day Restaurant with Congressman David Rivera and another individual,” Mulvihill told the judge. “At that point David Rivera directed Ana Alliegro to meet with Justin Lamar Sternad to assist, and she then met with Justin Lamar Sternad.”
The repercussions of that criminal case and the FEC civil dispute hobbled Rivera’s comeback attempts for state and federal offices. Rivera, who had served in the Florida House of Representatives and shared a place with then-state Rep. Marco Rubio, never got elected after leaving Congress in early 2013.
Rivera was thrust back into the political spotlight in 2020, when he was sued over a $50 million contract to provide consulting services for Venezuela’s state-run oil company — but then failed to do much of anything to earn it, according to the lawsuit. Rivera, the suit contends, was hired in 2017 by a U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA, to help improve its image in America as the energy firm’s finances and reputation collapsed along with Venezuela’s economy.
READ MORE: Former Congressman Rivera paid millions for consulting by Venezuelan oil firm, suit says
That national oil giant was then under the control of socialist President Nicolás Maduro, who has been reviled by U.S. politicians in the same way as the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who was close to Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.
The breach-of-contract suit was filed in New York federal court by the subsidiary, PDV USA Inc. It seeks $15 million back from Rivera’s firm, Interamerican Consulting Inc. — the down payment on what was supposed to be a three-month, $50 million contract. The consulting firm’s lawyers have filed a counterclaim, saying Rivera performed his duties and is owed all of that money, court records show. The case is headed for trial later this year or next year.
Rivera, meanwhile, has been under federal investigation by the FBI over that PDV USA consulting contract since the latter part of 2017.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office probe, which has focused on Rivera’s failure to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department as well as questions of tax evasion, fraud and money laundering, is still ongoing. He is suspected of diverting about $4 million from his firm’s PDV USA consulting contract to a wealthy Venezuelan businessman, Raúl Gorrín, according to several law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. Rivera made wire payments from his consulting business to Gorrín through a Miami company, Interglobal Yacht Management LLC, in which the businessman had a financial interest. Interglobal also managed Gorrín’s yachts.
In late 2018, Gorrín was indicted in Miami federal court in an unrelated corruption case accusing him of conspiring with former Venezuelan officials in stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the government. Gorrín, who is politically connected, owns a TV station in Caracas and once owned more than a dozen residential properties in Miami-Dade County, is considered a fugitive.
Over the past five years, federal authorities in Miami have prosecuted dozens of Venezuela officials and business associates on charges of embezzling billions from Venezuela’s national oil company and moving their money into the U.S. banking system and real estate.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 2:49 PM.
