A federal jury in Miami convicted former U.S. Representative David Rivera and lobbyist Esther Nuhfer on Friday of secretly lobbying on behalf of the Venezuelan government in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, laundering the proceeds, and engaging in transactions with criminally derived funds — the culmination of a five-week trial over a $50 million contract with a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. Rivera, 60, faces a maximum sentence of 60 years in federal prison. Nuhfer, 51, faces up to 30 years.
“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 for the Southern District of Florida in a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida. “They accepted millions tied to the Maduro regime, concealed that relationship from the United States government, and used trusted personal and political relationships to secretly advance the interests of Venezuela’s regime. In South Florida, where so many families fled communist oppression, that kind of betrayal carries real weight.”
What the Jury Found
According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Rivera and Nuhfer obtained a $50 million contract with PDV USA — a U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) — to advance the interests of the Venezuelan regime in the United States during the first Trump administration in 2017 and 2018. Without registering as foreign agents as required by law, they lobbied U.S. officials — including then-Senator Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, and then-Representative Pete Sessions — and arranged meetings between U.S. policymakers and high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including then-President Nicolás Maduro and then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez. In their private communications, Rivera and Nuhfer used coded language to describe their activities, as confirmed by the DOJ press release.
The jury found Rivera guilty on all counts: conspiracy to violate FARA, a substantive FARA violation, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and four counts of engaging in transactions in criminally derived property. Nuhfer was convicted of conspiracy to violate FARA, a substantive FARA violation, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of engaging in transactions in criminally derived property. Evidence showed that Rivera used approximately $600,000 from the contract proceeds to fund his Florida state congressional campaign, among other personal uses. Nuhfer used approximately $455,000 of the proceeds to purchase a residence in Key Colony Beach, Florida.
After the verdict was read, District Judge Melissa Damian ordered Rivera taken into custody immediately, finding that he posed a flight risk given the seriousness of the charges and his access to significant financial resources. Rivera had been out on bond since his arrest on December 5, 2022, when he was first charged with failure to register as a foreign agent and money laundering conspiracy, as documented in his Wikipedia entry drawing on court records. Rivera looked stone-faced as the jury delivered its verdict, according to the Associated Press.
Who Is David Rivera?
Rivera represented Florida’s 25th Congressional District as a Republican from 2011 to 2013, serving one term before losing his 2012 reelection bid. As documented on his Wikipedia entry, Rivera was born in New York City in 1965 and moved to Florida in 1974. Before serving in Congress, he was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2000 to 2008. He is a longtime personal friend and former roommate of Secretary of State Marco Rubio — a relationship that became central to the prosecution’s case, given that Rubio was among the U.S. officials Rivera lobbied without disclosing his Venezuelan contract. Rubio testified at the trial, telling the court he was unaware of the consulting contract with PDV USA. Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas similarly testified he had no knowledge of the arrangement.
The defense argued throughout the five-week trial that Rivera and Nuhfer acted in good faith and believed they were not required to register under FARA, contending that their contract applied only to commercial work aimed at bringing ExxonMobil back to Venezuela — a type of activity that would not typically trigger FARA registration. Prosecutors countered that argument with evidence from Nuhfer’s own private communications, in which she drafted FARA disclosure letters in a chat with Rivera — suggesting she was aware of the registration requirement while simultaneously concealing their activities. The jury sided with the government on all counts.
What Is FARA — and Why It Matters
The Foreign Agents Registration Act, codified at 22 U.S.C. §§ 611-621, was enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda and foreign political subversion. As documented by the Congressional Research Service, FARA requires individuals and entities engaged in political or advocacy activities on behalf of foreign governments, organizations, or persons to register with the Department of Justice and publicly disclose their relationship, activities, and financial compensation. The law does not prohibit lobbying for foreign interests — it requires transparency about it. Agents must file a registration statement with the DOJ within 10 days of agreeing to act as an agent of a foreign principal, and must update those filings every six months.
According to the DOJ’s FARA FAQ, a willful violation of FARA carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Rivera and Nuhfer face far greater exposure because their FARA charges were compounded by money laundering conspiracy and transactions in criminally derived property — charges that carry their own substantial penalties. Rivera’s maximum exposure of 60 years reflects the full stacking of all counts. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
FARA enforcement was historically rare. As documented by the Congressional Research Service’s FARA legal overview, between 1966 — when FARA was amended to resemble its current form — and 2015, the Department of Justice brought only seven criminal FARA cases. That changed significantly after a 2016 DOJ Inspector General report found FARA enforcement was too lax and recommended a more aggressive strategy. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election produced several high-profile FARA convictions, and in 2022 the DOJ reported it had charged a record number of criminal FARA cases — the same year Rivera was first charged.
The Venezuela Connection and PDVSA
The contract at the center of the case was with PDV USA, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) — Venezuela’s state-owned and state-controlled oil company, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control since January 2019. The prosecution presented evidence that the contract was designed to ease tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela and help end American sanctions on Maduro’s government during the first Trump administration. The effort ultimately failed — as noted in the DOJ press release, the Trump administration did not loosen restrictions on Venezuela during this period; it sanctioned Maduro’s government within Trump’s first six months in office.
Prosecutors also alleged that Rivera received over $5.5 million for his efforts to lobby officials on behalf of sanctioned Venezuelan businessman Raúl Gorrín. The FBI’s Brett Skiles, Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Field Office, said in the DOJ announcement that Rivera and Nuhfer “thought they could operate in the shadows” through coded language and money laundering. “This conviction proves that no matter how much ‘coded language’ is used or how high-ranking the conspirators may be, the FBI and its partners will remain steadfast in identifying and investigating those who covertly serve foreign interests at the expense of the American public’s trust.”
What Comes Next
Sentencing will be scheduled before Judge Damian, who will consider the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and all statutory factors before determining Rivera’s and Nuhfer’s sentences. The case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Counsel Harold Schimkat, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Cruz, and Trial Attorney David Ryan of the Justice Department’s National Security Division — the same division that houses the FARA Unit. Related court documents may be found on the website of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida under case number 22-cr-20552. IRS Criminal Investigation’s Ron Loecker emphasized the financial dimensions of the case: “Following the money is what IRS Criminal Investigation does best, and our agents worked tirelessly with our law enforcement partners to uncover the illegal activity driving this foreign influence scheme.”
The Rivera conviction arrives at a moment of heightened scrutiny of foreign influence operations in the United States, and with Venezuela itself in an extraordinary period of political transition. The U.S. military removed Nicolás Maduro — the same Venezuelan president Rivera allegedly helped lobby for — in January 2026 as part of Operation Absolute Resolve, and the Trump administration has since moved to reopen the long-closed U.S. embassy in Caracas and restore diplomatic and commercial ties. The irony is not lost on observers: the Venezuelan regime Rivera was convicted of secretly serving no longer holds power in Caracas. But the legal principle his conviction reinforces — that covert foreign influence in American politics carries serious federal consequences regardless of which regime is paying — remains as relevant as the 1938 law that encoded it.