Judge denies bond for former Congressman David Rivera, citing flight risk

Former Miami Congressman David Rivera must remain behind bars while he awaits sentencing for secretly lobbying for Venezuela, with a judge saying Thursday that ties to that country and questions about offshore cash make Rivera enough of a flight risk to deny him even a $7 million bond.

Several of Rivera’s prominent friends, including Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Alina Garcia, offered their own homes as collateral to help Rivera come up with the funds needed to be released from federal custody if a judge agreed to a bond amount.

But federal prosecutors warned Rivera, 60, was a risk of fleeing the country before his July 20 sentencing hearing, where he faces a prison sentence of 10 years or more.

U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian sided with prosecutors. She cited Rivera’s business dealings in Venezuela — before his trial, Rivera asked court permission to travel to the country on a business trip related to political consulting — and a “lack of clarity” about overseas financial assets belonging to Rivera, who in the past reported $100,000 in a bank account in Taiwan and $50,000 in Haiti.

Damian said Rivera gave no sign of wanting to break any court rules before and during the trial, which ended May 1 with a guilty verdict. But the judge wrote that “circumstances have dramatically changed since the jury’s guilty verdict” convicting him of violating a federal law requiring someone to register when lobbying for a foreign government.

“Rivera now faces the very real prospect of a lengthy prison sentence,” Damian wrote in the order released Thursday. The order also acknowledged Rivera’s “strong family and community ties,” citing support by Garcia and others.

In a statement, Rivera lawyer David Weinstein said the ruling was a disappointment and that the legal team believes “our client is not a risk of flight and that we satisfied our burden to prove that.”