Defense lawyer rips star witness at Rivera’s trial over nearly $5M side deal

When former Congressman David Rivera paid about $5 million to a Miami businessman for helping him land a $50-million consulting contract with the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company, they sealed their side deal in two marketing agreements.

But at Rivera’s federal trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent for Venezuela, the government’s star witness, Hugo Perera, admitted Monday that one of their agreements was altered and submitted to his bank so that he could withdraw a series of payments from Rivera.

The revised agreement between Rivera’s company, Interamerican Consulting, and Perera’s firm, PG & Associates, was effective from May 24, 2016, to May 24, 2018, according to court records. The names and signatures on the contract were “Damian Rivera” and Hugo Perera.

Perera admitted that he made the changes on the second contract after speaking with Rivera, and that they were different from the men’s original agreement, which was effective May 20, 2017, and signed by David Rivera and Hugo Perera.

Margot Moss, an attorney for Rivera’s co-defendant in the foreign-agent case, pointed out that Perera changed Rivera’s name and signature and the dates on their original contract so he could submit it to Ocean Bank and receive the multimillion-dollar payments on their side deal. The bank, he said, kept asking him about the source of the payments.

“Yes, I changed it,” Perera testified before the 12-person jury in Miami federal court.

Moss’ cross-examination undercut the credibility of the government’s main cooperating witness, Perera, who was not charged with Rivera and co-defendant Esther Nuhfer, a Miami political consultant. She also cut a side deal with the former Republican congressman from Miami and received about $4 million from his contract with the Venezuelan oil subsidiary in the United States.

Rivera and Nuhfer are charged with conspiring against the U.S. government, failing to register as foreign agents for Venezuela and money laundering in 2017 and 2018. Federal prosecutors started their case a month ago and are expected to finish it on Friday. After a one-week break, the defense teams will begin presenting their side in late April.

‘It was bank fraud’

On Monday, Moss asked simple but tough questions of Perera, drawing responses that exposed his questionable conduct when he submitted the altered marketing agreement with Rivera to his bank. Rivera’s consulting firm had signed the $50-million deal in March 2017 with the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDV USA, which operates as Houston-based Citgo.

Rivera’s consulting agreement was ostensibly to promote Citgo’s refinery business in the United States and try to resolve a major dispute between U.S. oil behemoth Exxon and Venezuela.

But prosecutors say the highly profitable deal was a cover for Rivera and Nuhfer as they secretly tried to “normalize” relations between the United States and Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, and Caracas-based oil business, PDVSA, faced economic sanctions.

As part of his lobbying efforts, court records show Rivera met with Texas Congressman Pete Sessions in New York and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in Washington, as well as with Maduro in Venezuela. Nuhfer met with Sessions and Rubio in New York and Washington, but not Maduro.

Defense lawyers counter that Rivera and Nuhfer, a pair of staunch Cuban-American anti-communists, were only interested in pushing democratic elections in Venezuela and removing Maduro from power.

During her cross-examination, Moss appeared to score points with the jury as she focused on Perera’s altering of his side agreement with Rivera, while accusing him of lying to his bank and committing fraud.

“You knew it was wrong,” Moss asked.

“Yes,” Perera testified.

“This was a crime,” the lawyer said. “It was bank fraud.”

“I don’t know,” Perera said.

“Not only did you lie about a document and transfer it to the bank, but you also lied to the jury,” Moss said.

“No, I haven’t lied to the jury,” Perera said.

Keeping his $5 million payment

Last week, Rivera’s attorney also punched away at Perera, zeroing in on his testimony that he regretted “one thousand percent” ever becoming Rivera’s partner on the $50-million contract with the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company.

Perera also said he would not return his $5 million cut for making introductions that sealed Rivera’s astonishing deal with Maduro’s socialist government.

“You said you regret this decision ... but you’re keeping the $5 million payment,” attorney Ed Shohat said.

“He didn’t ask for it,” Perera said, referring to Rivera.

The courtroom exchange highlighted the inherent friction in the government’s case. Perera, after receiving a grand jury subpoena more than five years ago, chose to flip on Rivera and Nuhfer and got to keep his multimillion-dollar commission on the Venezuelan deal, a remarkable outcome for the Miami real estate developer with a cocaine-trafficking conviction in the late 1990s.

READ MORE: He’s the star witness against Rivera. He helped him land $50M Venezuelan deal

Perera left his native Cuba for Spain as a 10-year-old boy, then later moved to New York as a teen and eventually to Miami. In his 20s, he said he operated a frozen-vegetable packing business in Guatemala, where he became involved with the Cali Cartel, the world’s largest drug-trafficking organization in the 1980s and ‘90s. The cartel used his business to ship cocaine hidden inside packages of frozen vegetables to the United States.

After moving back to Miami, Perera pleaded guilty in the mid-1990s to cocaine trafficking and tax-fraud charges in the massive drug-smuggling case against the Colombian cartel and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Perera also turned over $3.75 million from his illicit profits that he had kept in a Swiss bank under an account known as the Broccoli Foundation, according to court records.

“Yes, I committed those crimes, I was incarcerated, and I returned all the money,” Perera testified last week. “I was 27 years old. I‘m not saying it was good what I did. But I paid for my crime.”

From prison to real estate developer

After his prison term, Perera made a spectacular rebound as a real estate developer in Miami, building high-rise apartments and condos. He also invested in a Miami-Dade farm that produced mamey, a tropical fruit, and opened a restaurant called Caramelo in Coral Gables in the mid-2000s.

There, Perera met Nuhfer, the Miami political fundraiser, who a decade later introduced her to Rivera. Perera then introduced Rivera to his Fisher Island neighbor, Raul Gorrín, a wealthy Venezuelan who was close to Maduro and his foreign minister, Delcy Rodríguez. Through those connections, Rivera’s business, Interamerican, signed the huge contract with the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s oil company, PDV USA, in March 2017.

Rivera cut side deals with Nuhfer, Perera and Gorrín, with each of the four partners agreeing to receive 25% of the proceeds. Rivera paid about $5 million to Perera and about $4 million each to Nuhfer and Gorrín.

The U.S. oil subsidiary ended up paying Rivera’s firm $20 million in 2017 before firing him for doing little work on boosting Citgo’s refinery interests in the U.S. as well as trying to bring Exxon back to Venezuela.

Gorrín ultimately informed Rivera and Nuhfer that Maduro “refused to agree to hold free and fair elections in Venezuela in exchange for reconciliation with the United States,” according to their indictment.

In early January, U.S. military forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from a compound in Caracas and brought them to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges in New York.

Gorrín is wanted by U.S. authorities on two federal indictments in Miami charging him with foreign corruption and money laundering. And three sources recently told the Miami Herald that Gorrín is being held in a notorious Venezuelan prison known as La Tumba — The Tomb.