Friends pledge millions to free ex-Rep. David Rivera. Judge will rule soon

A half-dozen prominent academic and political figures filed into Miami federal court on Thursday to pledge the value of their homes to help secure a proposed $7 million bond for their friend, former Congressman David Rivera, in bid to free him from jail.

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But a judge, who detained Rivera in early May after he was found guilty of being an unregistered foreign agent for the Venezuelan government, chose not to rule immediately on whether to release him before his July 20 sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian initially sided with prosecutors who argued that Rivera could potentially flee the country if freed. At the end of Thursday’s hearing, Damian said she would issue her ruling on his bond request soon, without providing a date. But she let it be known that it made little sense to process all the paperwork for bail when Rivera faces 10 years or more in prison at his sentencing next month.

“It is unusual for me to be considering this motion for a one-month period,” Damian said.

On May 1, a 12-person jury convicted the 60-year-old politician on charges of failing to register as foreign agent in 2017, when he signed a $50 million contract with the American arm of Venezuela’s national oil company and lobbied major U.S. politicians in a scheme to “normalize” relations with socialist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The jury unanimously found Rivera and political consultant Esther Nuhfer guilty of breaking a foreign-agent registration law when they secretly worked on Venezuela’s behalf while they lobbied their friend, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and other U.S. officials in 2017 and 2018.

Nuhfer, 51, unlike Rivera, was not detained by the judge after her conviction. She faces sentencing on Aug. 18 after her defense attorney, David O. Markus, asked the judge to push back the original July 20 date.

Rivera, wearing a khaki inmate suit, told the judge that he was grateful to the friends who have stood by him and pledged the equity of their homes as collateral for his proposed bond.

“These are people who have known me a long time, they know me very well,” Rivera told the judge. “They know I will be here on July 20.”

Rivera also disclosed for the first time that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

His defense attorneys, Ed Shohat and David Weinstein, made their pitch to release Rivera on bond before sentencing, saying he would not betray his friends who have put their money on the line for him.

“This is $5 million of people’s homes that would be lost if Mr. Rivera were to flee. … There is nothing to suggest he would do such a thing,” Shohat told the judge.

The remaining $2 million would come from a bond secured with a $200,000 deposit to be paid into the federal court registry, he said in court papers.

But federal prosecutors Harold Schimkat and Roger Cruz said the trial evidence revealed Rivera’s “deceptive conduct” as he lobbied then-Sen. Rubio and Congressman Pete Sessions about “normalizing” relations between the United States and Venezuela while he had the $50 million consulting contract with an American subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company. Both politicians said they were unaware of the contract between Rivera’s business, Interamerican Consulting, and PDV USA, the parent company of Houston-based CITGO.

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Rubio testified in March that “it would have been shocking” if he had known Rivera, with his reputation as a strident anti-communist, was working as a secret lobbyist for Venezuela’s socialist regime almost a decade ago.

Several of Rivera’s high-profile friends attended Thursday’s hearing but did not speak in court. They had sent letters to the judge.

Alina Garcia, Miami-Dade’s elected supervisor of elections, offered to put up $400,000 of equity in her home as security for the former congressman’s bail.

Modesto “Mitch” Maidique, a former president of Florida International University, pledged $100,000 toward the money that Rivera would need to post bail and be free until his sentencing hearing.

Juan Carlos Zapata, a former Miami-Dade commissioner who served with Rivera in the Florida House, said the two have known each other for 40 years. “Over those four decades, two constants defined David’s public life: his opposition to the evils of communism and his commitment to the welfare of our community,” Zapata wrote in offering to contribute $267,000 of the equity of his home to Rivera’s bail package.

Letters from those three and from other supporters, including former FIU President Mark Rosenberg, were filed in the court record two weeks after Rivera was convicted and detained. Rosenberg pledged $500,000 of equity in his home to the bond for Rivera.

Garcia, a former Florida House member who once worked for Rivera in the Florida House and in Congress, praised her former boss in a letter to Judge Damian.

“He gave years of his life to public service, fighting for his constituents and for the values that define this community,” Garcia wrote. “He is a man who has always put Florida and its people first, and that is not the character of someone who walks away from his obligations.”

If Damian grants Rivera bail before his July 20 sentencing hearing, he would likely have to use either cash or real estate to secure money to be used as a security deposit in order to leave the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami. That deposit would be forfeited if Rivera failed to show up as ordered for his sentencing hearing.

In a bid to get Damian to consider granting bail for Rivera, the former congressman’s lawyers submitted letters from friends and former colleagues to both vouch for him and put their own finances at risk on his behalf.

The letters from Rivera’s friends emphasized how much they trust him by putting up cash or the cash value of their homes that would be surrendered if Rivera fled authorities.

“I place my trust in David Rivera because I know him to be responsible, dependable and accountable,” wrote Maidique, who credited Rivera with securing crucial state funding needed to launch FIU’s medical school. “He never personally let me down as a colleague or as a friend.”

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Miami Herald Staff Writer Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.

This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 6:28 PM.