Feds drop long-running straw man campaign case against former US Rep. David Rivera
For eight years, federal election lawyers have been pursuing former Republican U.S. Rep. David Rivera in court, claiming he funneled illegal political contributions to a candidate running against the congressman’s main Democratic rival in a 2012 Miami-Dade primary campaign.
On Monday, the Federal Election Commission stopped chasing Rivera, who at one point had been on the hook for a court-ordered $456,000 penalty.
Lawyers for both sides agreed in a joint filing to dismiss the long-running case, leaving U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon with the formality of accepting the terms that each party bear its own legal fees and expenses.
Without explanation, the FEC chose not to take Rivera to trial after a federal appeals court this summer threw out the substantial fine imposed on Rivera by the late U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke in Miami. In 2022, Cooke ruled in favor of the FEC against Rivera at the summary judgment stage of the case, but the appeals court in Atlanta ruled she erred because there were still facts in dispute that should have been resolved by a jury at trial.
Rivera, 59, called the FEC’s case “politically motivated.”
“This victory against the FEC proves what I’ve said for 12 years,” Rivera told the Miami Herald in a statement. “Their politically motivated witch-hunt was baseless and they had no case. This shows the importance of fighting back against government’s weaponizing the judiciary, because in the end truth and justice always prevail.”
Feds still pursuing Rivera in Venezuelan case
Rivera, who has worked as a consultant after serving one term in Congress ending in early 2013, is still in the cross-hairs of the U.S. government. He was indicted in late 2022 and again in December on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent with the federal government, while working as a consultant for the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company and for a politically connected Venezuelan business tycoon.
An attorney representing Rivera said they are waiting to hear from the FEC on whether the agency intends to continue pursuing the case. The Federal Election Commission declined to comment.
In the FEC case, Rivera was accused of secretly bankrolling $75,927 in political services for the primary campaign of a Democratic candidate running against Joe Garcia, who would ultimately go on to defeat Rivera in November 2012 in what was then considered Florida’s 26th Congressional District.
The scheme, first reported by the Miami Herald, was the subject of a years-long federal investigation.
Straw man elections case
The candidate receiving the financial support, Justin Lamar Sternad, eventually pleaded guilty to criminal charges and served 30 days in prison, with three months’ house arrest.
A political consultant working with Rivera, Ana Alliegro, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison, six months of house arrest, and two years of supervised release.
Rivera wasn’t charged criminally. Instead, he faced a civil complaint from the FEC, which said he’d violated federal laws banning straw man political donations.
In 2022, Cooke sided with the FEC, saying that “Rivera’s illegal conduct was egregious” and issuing an injunction blocking Rivera — who continued to flirt with political campaigns — from illegal campaign activity in the future.
“Perhaps by virtue of the Court barring Rivera from engaging in similar unlawful conduct in the future, ‘that will do the trick’ in convincing Rivera — a former U.S. Congressman — to stop violating the law,” Cooke wrote.
Rivera, who is represented by South Florida lawyers Jeffrey Feldman and Thomas Hunker in the FEC case, has always denied masterminding an illegal campaign plot to undermine Garcia.
Last July, federal appellate judges Barbara Lagoa, Robert Luck and Charles Wilson reversed Cooke, saying she erred by granting summary judgment in favor of the FEC.
The appeals panel found that Cooke relied heavily on testimony from witnesses, Sternad and vendors who provided services to the Sternad campaign, and “improperly discounted” Rivera’s deposition and signed affidavits denying any contributions to the Democratic candidate. Summary judgment, they noted, is reserved for cases in which material facts are not in dispute.
At the time, Rivera’s attorney, Feldman, told the Herald that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgment against the former congressman “because the Federal Election Commission did not have sufficient evidence to prove its allegations. ”
The 11th Circuit sent the case back to the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, where a different judge, Cannon, was assigned the case following Cooke’s death in 2023.
Judge: Ex-Miami Rep. Rivera must finally pay penalty for election violations. It’s six figures
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:14 PM.
