Prosecutors portray Rivera, colleague as ‘greedy’ foreign agents for Venezuela
Federal prosecutors on Monday portrayed former Miami-Dade Congressman David Rivera and political consultant Esther Nuhfer as “secret” foreign agents for Venezuela who were driven by “greed” when Rivera’s company signed a $50 million lobbying contract to “normalize” relations with then-President Nicolás Maduro.
Rivera, 60, and Nuhfer, 51, faced their first day of trial in Miami federal court on charges of conspiring against the U.S. government by failing to register as foreign agents when Rivera’s consulting firm struck the highly lucrative deal in 2017 with the American subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company, PDVSA.
Prosecutor Roger Cruz said in opening statements that the two defendants deliberately did not register as agents for Venezuela so they could lobby former Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Rep. Pete Sessions and other government officials without them knowing the pair was doing the bidding of Maduro’s government.
READ MORE: Rubio’s statement to FBI will shape his testimony in Rivera foreign-agent trial
Cruz said the defendants may claim they were trying to promote the interests of PDV USA, which operates as the Houston-based oil company CITGO, and rekindle business dealings between Exxon and Venezuela — but they were really using their political access to prevent U.S. sanctions against Maduro and his government.
“They orchestrated a secret influence campaign for $50 million,” Cruz told the 12-person jury, adding they “spoke in code [in online chats] because they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing.”
But defense attorneys said Rivera and Nuhfer, known as anti-communist and anti-socialist advocates for decades, would never help Maduro and his government, arguing they were trying to remove him from power and replace him with an opposition leader through democratic elections.
They said the pair dealt directly with the American subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company and were not required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“The whole theory of the government’s case is utterly preposterous,” Rivera’s attorney, Edward Shohat, told the jury. “At no time … not just in 2017 and 2018 … has David Rivera said one thing to help Nicolás Maduro normalize relations with the United States. ... Every email, every chat was about removing Nicolas Maduro.”
Nuhfer’s lawyer, Margot Moss, pointed out that it was Rivera’s company, Interamerican Consulting, that signed the $50 million contract with the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company. Moss said Nuhfer introduced Rivera to a Miami developer, Hugo Perera, who put him in touch with a wealthy Venezuelan TV mogul, Raul Gorrin, known to be close to Maduro and other top officials.
“What Esther was doing did not require her to register” as a foreign agent for Venezuela,” Moss told the jury. “Frankly, she was doing next to nothing. She just wanted to get a referral fee. … You’re not going to see any evidence of Esther as a foreign agent.”
But according to an indictment, Rivera, Nuhfer and others joined forces to lobby Rubio, then the Republican U.S. senator from Miami, and lawyer Kellyanne Conway, a White House advisor during Trump’s first term in office. Rivera and
Nuhfer were unable to meet with Conway, but they did arrange two meetings with Rubio and others in Washington in July 2017, when they discussed a plan to persuade Maduro to hold democratic elections and step down as president.
Maduro meeting
According to the indictment, Rivera also collaborated with Gorrín to arrange a meeting between Sessions, the Texas Republican congressman, and Maduro in Caracas.
On April 2, 2018, the indictment says, Rivera, Gorrín and Sessions met with Maduro and other Venezuelan politicians to discuss normalizing relations between the United States and Venezuela. As part of the meeting, Sessions agreed to carry a letter with that proposal from Maduro to then-President Trump, who was serving in his first term, but their efforts were unsuccessful.
In the end, Rivera’s consulting firm received $20 million from PDV USA before the U.S. subsidiary ended the contract after a falling out in 2017.
Court documents in both the criminal case and a parallel civil lawsuit revealed that Rivera diverted more than half of his PDV USA income — $13 million — to three subcontractors in Miami who supposedly provided “international strategic consulting services” for the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company. The three recipients of the proceeds were Gorrín, Nuhfer and Perera.
Perera “is the star witness” for the government because he was an insider with access to Gorrín, Nuhfer’s attorney, David O. Markus, said at a court hearing on Friday. Markus noted that Perera received about $5 million from Rivera for making introductions but was not charged with him and Nuhfer.
Perera, who has a criminal history as a convicted drug trafficker, is expected to testify as a cooperating witness for the government during the six-week trial. Rubio is scheduled to testify on Tuesday, the second day of the Rivera-Nuhfer trial.