MIAMI — A federal grand jury in Washington has returned an indictment in opposition to former Congressman David Rivera for failing to register as a international agent of a sanctioned Venezuelan media tycoon on whose behalf the Miami Republican allegedly lobbied the Trump administration.
The indictment is the second set of criminal charges to look at Rivera’s relationship to Raúl Gorrín, a billionaire businessman charged in 2018 and again in 2024 with bribing senior Venezuelan officers in corrupt offers to embezzle state funds from Nicolas Maduro’s administration.
The indictment unsealed on Wednesday alleges that Rivera, between June 2019 and April 2020, lobbied U.S. officers, together with an unnamed senior official within the govt department, to take away sanctions in opposition to Gorrín. He was aided in that effort by one other unnamed particular person described as a former U.S. official and resident of New York, prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Division’s Nationwide Safety Division mentioned.
Rivera allegedly obtained over $5.5 million for these actions and did not register below International Brokers Registration Act, as required when contacting U.S. officers on behalf of international people and firms. He was additionally charged with cash laundering in connection to the undeclared lobbying work.
To advertise his prison actions, Rivera allegedly created pretend shell corporations registered in Delaware utilizing names related to a legislation agency and with the unnamed official, in addition to the official’s hometown, to present the false look that the shell corporations had been professional, in line with the indictment. Prosecutors mentioned the official was unaware the businesses had been utilizing his or her identify and hometown.
Ed Shohat, a Miami protection lawyer who represents Rivera, declined to remark, saying he hadn’t had time to debate the indictment together with his consumer.
Rivera was arrested in 2022 in one other unlawful lobbying case, out of federal court docket in Miami, tied to a $50 million consulting contract his agency, Interamerican Consulting, signed with a U.S. affiliate of Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm PDVSA. Prosecutors say the 2017 contract was a ruse to cover a secret marketing campaign by Maduro’s authorities to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration.
The Maduro outreach, facilitated by Trump’s present incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles when she labored as a Washington lobbyist on behalf of Gorrín’s TV community Globovision, finally failed. In 2019, Trump acknowledged opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader and imposed stiff oil sanctions on the OPEC nation in a bid to unseat Maduro.
However earlier than the allure offensive unraveled, Gorrín, with the assistance of Rivera and others, managed to get his photograph taken shaking fingers with then-Vice President Mike Pence at an occasion in Florida. Rivera and Gorrín additionally met with Trump’s choose to develop into Secretary of State, Sen. Marco Rubio, who was as soon as Rivera’s roommate when each had been state lawmakers in Tallahassee.
Rivera additionally appeared to arrange a attainable flight and assembly on Gorrín’s jet for a feminine marketing campaign adviser turned White Home “counselor” on June 27, 2017 — the identical day Trump aide Kellyanne Conway was in Miami for a fundraising dinner with Miami Republicans, in line with court docket information within the earlier prison criticism and a parallel lawsuit filed in opposition to Rivera by Maduro’s opponents who now management the U.S. subsidiary of PDVSA.
Rivera additionally roped in Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas to attempt to arrange a gathering for Venezuela’s international minister with executives from Exxon, which was headquartered in Classes’ district on the time.
