Judge denies bond for former Congressman David Rivera, citing flight risk

Miami-Dade County admin June 18, 2026 0 Comments

Judge denies bond for former Congressman David Rivera, citing flight risk

Former Miami Congressman David Rivera must remain behind bars while he awaits sentencing for secretly lobbying for Venezuela, with a judge saying Thursday that ties to that country and questions about offshore cash make Rivera enough of a flight risk to deny him even a $7 million bond.

Several of Rivera’s prominent friends, including Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Alina Garcia, offered their own homes as collateral to help Rivera come up with the funds needed to be released from federal custody if a judge agreed to a bond amount.

But federal prosecutors warned Rivera, 60, was a risk of fleeing the country before his July 20 sentencing hearing, where he faces a prison sentence of 10 years or more.

U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian sided with prosecutors. She cited Rivera’s business dealings in Venezuela — before his trial, Rivera asked court permission to travel to the country on a business trip related to political consulting — and a “lack of clarity” about overseas financial assets belonging to Rivera, who in the past reported $100,000 in a bank account in Taiwan and $50,000 in Haiti.

Damian said Rivera gave no sign of wanting to break any court rules before and during the trial, which ended May 1 with a guilty verdict. But the judge wrote that “circumstances have dramatically changed since the jury’s guilty verdict” convicting him of violating a federal law requiring someone to register when lobbying for a foreign government.

“Rivera now faces the very real prospect of a lengthy prison sentence,” Damian wrote in the order released Thursday. The order also acknowledged Rivera’s “strong family and community ties,” citing support by Garcia and others.

In a statement, Rivera lawyer David Weinstein said the ruling was a disappointment and that the legal team believes “our client is not a risk of flight and that we satisfied our burden to prove that.”