Ex-Miami congressman is convicted in a secret Venezuela lobbying case

Former Miami Congressman Convicted in $50 Million Venezuelan Lobbying Scheme

A federal jury in Miami convicted former Republican Congressman David Rivera and his associate Esther Nuhfer on Friday of secretly lobbying for Venezuela’s government during the first Trump administration. The verdict caps a seven-week trial that revealed a clandestine $50 million influence campaign aimed at softening U.S. policy toward the Maduro regime.

Rivera, 60, a longtime friend of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was immediately taken into custody after Judge Melissa Damian deemed him a flight risk. The judge cited Rivera’s access to substantial funds, the potential for a lengthy prison sentence, and additional pending federal charges in Washington, D.C. related to foreign lobbying.

Prosecutors successfully argued that Rivera and Nuhfer, a political consultant, failed to register as foreign agents with the Justice Department while engaging in a conspiracy to commit money laundering on behalf of Venezuela’s government.

“These convictions expose a simple truth: the defendants sold access and influence to a hostile foreign regime for money,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones. “In South Florida, where so many families fled communist oppression, that kind of betrayal carries real weight.”

The trial featured testimony from high-profile witnesses including Rubio, Texas Congressman Pete Sessions, and a prominent Washington lobbyist. All testified they were shocked to later discover Rivera’s consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.

According to the 2022 indictment, then-Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez—now Venezuela’s acting president—recruited Rivera to leverage his Republican connections to persuade the Trump administration to ease crippling sanctions against Venezuela. Prosecutors claimed the defendants manipulated influential friends like “pawns on a chess board” to normalize relations with the Maduro government despite serious human rights allegations.

“As long as the money kept coming in, they didn’t care from where,” prosecutor Roger Cruz told jurors during closing arguments. Cruz argued Rivera and Nuhfer concealed their lobbying activities to protect Rivera’s political standing as an anti-communist figure in Miami’s exile community.

To mask their activities, Rivera allegedly established an encrypted chat group called “MIA” with Venezuelan media mogul Raúl Gorrín, who was later charged in the U.S. with bribing Venezuelan officials. The group used code names—Maduro was the “bus driver,” Sessions “Sombrero,” Rodríguez “The Lady in Red,” and millions of dollars “melons.”

“It was all about La Luz,” Cruz said, referring to the Spanish word for “light,” which participants repeatedly used when discussing payments from Caracas.

Defense attorneys maintained their clients acted in good faith, believing they were under no obligation to disclose their activities. They argued the $50 million contract with Rivera’s consulting firm focused exclusively on bringing oil giant ExxonMobil back to Venezuela—commercial work generally exempt from foreign agent registration requirements.

“He was working every possible angle to get Nicolás Maduro out,” defense attorney Ed Shohat argued. “There was not a word in the chats about normalizing relations.”

Nuhfer’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, compared the government’s case to the Salem witch trials, calling it a presumption of ill intent based on flimsy evidence.

Prosecutors countered that Rivera used the contract with New York-based PDV USA as cover for illegal lobbying. Once exposed, they claimed, the partners attempted to conceal their work by backdating documents and creating sham agreements, including one justifying a $3.75 million wire transfer to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín’s luxury yacht.

The lobbying effort included arranging meetings for Rodríguez in multiple cities. Sessions reportedly attempted to broker a meeting between Rodríguez and ExxonMobil’s CEO and, after meeting secretly with Maduro in Caracas, agreed to deliver a letter from the Venezuelan president to Trump.

The outreach ultimately collapsed when Trump sanctioned Maduro within six months of taking office, labeling him a “dictator” and launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to remove him from power. Ironically, nearly a decade later, Rodríguez has emerged as a trusted partner for the second Trump administration following Maduro’s recent ouster by the U.S. military.

Rivera’s conviction adds to a checkered political career that included sharing a Tallahassee home with Rubio when the latter served as Florida House speaker. Rivera previously faced allegations of secretly funding a Democratic spoiler candidate in 2012 and was investigated—though never charged—for alleged campaign finance violations and a questionable $1 million gambling company contract during his time in the Florida Legislature.

Rivera’s attorneys indicated they plan to appeal the verdict.