Rivera was also ordered to serve one year of supervised release after leaving prison and pay a mandatory $700 special assessment. The court did not impose a fine.
The 61-year-old former congressman has remained in custody since a federal jury returned its guilty verdict in May 2026.
Rivera was prosecuted alongside political consultant Esther Nuhfer, who received a five-year prison sentence in August.
His legal battle is far from finished, however.
Rivera’s attorneys have indicated they intend to appeal the conviction. His defense team also submitted an application for a presidential pardon in June.
Meanwhile, a separate case involving allegations of improper foreign lobbying remains pending in Washington, D.C.
At the center of the Miami prosecution was a massive consulting deal involving Rivera’s company, Interamerican Consulting, and PDV USA, an American affiliate of Venezuela’s government-controlled oil giant PDVSA.
The March 2017 agreement carried a staggering price tag: $50 million for roughly three months of consulting work.
Federal prosecutors said Rivera’s company ultimately collected $20 million through four separate $5 million payments.
Three of those payments allegedly came from PDV USA during March and April 2017. Prosecutors said another $5 million arrived later that year from PDVSA through Russia’s Gazprom Bank.
The government argued that Rivera and Nuhfer subsequently engaged American political figures in an effort to influence U.S. policy toward Venezuela without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
According to prosecutors, Delcy Rodríguez — Venezuela’s foreign minister at the time and now the country’s acting president — wanted assistance persuading officials in President Donald Trump’s first administration and members of Congress to soften sanctions and improve relations with Nicolás Maduro’s government.
The outreach reached some prominent Republican figures.
Among those contacted were Marco Rubio, who was serving in the U.S. Senate at the time, and then-Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas.
Rubio’s relationship with Rivera went back years. The two Florida Republicans had been longtime friends and even former housemates.
But both Rubio and Sessions testified that Rivera never informed them about the lucrative oil-company consulting arrangement.
Following a seven-week federal trial in Miami, jurors convicted Rivera and Nuhfer on every count presented against them.
Those charges included conspiracy involving the Foreign Agents Registration Act, conspiracy to launder money and financial transactions involving proceeds from unlawful activity.
Prosecutors painted the operation as an elaborate effort to keep the true nature of the work hidden.
According to the government, documents were backdated, questionable consulting agreements were created, and encrypted communications included code names referring to government officials and financial transactions.
Prosecutors also highlighted the striking contrast between Rivera’s public political image and the conduct alleged behind closed doors.
Rivera had built a reputation as a fierce critic of the authoritarian governments in both Cuba and Venezuela. The government argued that revealing who was funding his activities would have been politically damaging and therefore provided a powerful incentive to keep the arrangement concealed.
Rivera’s defense offered a sharply different explanation.
His attorneys maintained that the consulting contract was centered on commercial efforts involving ExxonMobil’s potential return to Venezuela.
The defense argued that such commercial activity was generally exempt from foreign-agent registration requirements.
Rivera’s lawyers also maintained that his discussions with American political officials were intended to encourage political change inside Venezuela — not to advance Maduro’s interests.
Defense attorneys further argued that the underlying activity itself was not inherently illegal and suggested that the central issue amounted to Rivera’s failure to file the necessary foreign-agent registration paperwork.
Judge Damian was not persuaded.
At sentencing, the judge rejected the defense’s characterization of the arrangement and pointed to the origin of the money, concluding that the funds ultimately came from Maduro’s government.
She also characterized Rivera’s actions as being motivated by financial gain while concealing crucial information from people within his own political circle.
The conviction marks a dramatic fall for a politician who once occupied positions of influence in both Tallahassee and Washington.
Rivera served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2002 until 2010 before winning election to Congress.
The Republican represented Florida’s 25th Congressional District from 2011 to 2013.
Now, instead of returning to elected office, the former congressman faces years inside federal prison as his attorneys prepare their next legal move.
The case also serves as another reminder of the enormous scrutiny surrounding foreign money and influence operations in Washington — particularly when former elected officials leverage relationships developed during their political careers.
For Rivera, the immediate question now moves from the jury box to the appellate courts — and potentially the White House, where his request for presidential clemency could ultimately determine whether he serves the full decade imposed by the federal court.
