MIAMI _ David Rivera, a former member of Congress from Miami whose political career was built on anti-communist attacks on the Cuban government, signed a $50 million contract to provide consulting services for Venezuela's state-run oil company _ then failed to do much of anything to earn it, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Rivera, the suit contends, was hired in 2017 by a U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA, to help improve its image in America as the energy firm's finances and reputation collapsed along with Venezuela's economy. That national oil giant was then under the control of socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has been reviled by U.S. politicians in the same way as the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who was close to Maduro's predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.
The breach-of-contract suit filed in New York federal court by the subsidiary, PDV USA Inc. seeks $15 million back from Rivera's firm, Interamerican Consulting Inc. _ the down payment on what was supposed to be a three-month, $50 million contract.
Reached by the Miami Herald, Rivera would not comment on the specifics of his contract or whether he had taken a paycheck to represent a company controlled by a socialist government.
But, in text messages, he gave a murky explanation, hinting at a scheme to fund Maduro foes with proceeds from the oil consulting contract.
"All those funds went to the opposition for anti-Maduro protests in the summer of 2017. I never saw a penny of it. That's all I know."
He also added that the Trump administration, including the State Department, "were aware of everything."
According to the lawsuit, The PDVSA subsidiary says it initially paid $15 million to his consulting firm, but Rivera produced only a couple of thin reports before the agreement was ended, according to the suit.
Under its consulting agreement with Interamerican, Rivera was required to produce "at least seven biweekly reports detailing" his work and recommendations to improve the PDVSA subsidiary's reputation and standing in the United States, the suit says.
"Instead, (Rivera) provided just two reports, totaling no more than five pages, much of which is duplicated. These reports refer generically to a 'strategic plan,' 'meetings,' and 'recommendations,' but do not describe a single element of the alleged plan, identify meeting participants or meeting discussions, or specify what recommendations were made or to whom."
His consulting firm "performed no meaningful services under the Agreement," the suit concludes. The PDVSA subsidiary is seeking to recover the $15 million it paid to Interamerican between March and April of 2017, along with compensatory damages.
Rivera, a one-term Cuban American member of Congress and former Florida legislator whose career has been dogged by ethics violations and campaign finance investigations, once tried to expel a Venezuelan consul in Miami and is a close friend of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a critic of the Maduro administration. Rivera and Rubio shared a house in Tallahassee when they were both in the Legislature.
In his texts about the suit, Rivera mentioned the "Citgo 6." The six are U.S. oil executives with Houston-based Citgo, which is controlled by the Venezuelan government. They were arrested at a meeting in Caracas in November 2017 and held for two years in a military intelligence facility before being placed under house arrest last December.
"They managed that entire (anti-Maduro) operation, including all the money, in coordination with the Venezuelan opposition, including Leopoldo Lopez," Mr. Rivera said in the text, referring to an opposition leader in Venezuela.
After saying the money went to fund Maduro protests, he texted, "As far as the Citgo 6 being in jail, I warned them not to go back to Venezuela. I told them it sounded like a Maduro trap. Which it was."
However, there is no mention of Lopez, the Citgo 6 or the anti-Maduro mission in the suit, filed by the New York and Washington law firm Willkie, Farr & Gallagher.
Moreover, the suit's plaintiff, PDV USA, was controlled by the Maduro administration when it hired Rivera as a consultant in November 2017 _ not the Venezuelan opposition political leadership, headed by Juan Guaido. He is recognized as the interim president of Venezuela by the Trump administration, which last year imposed sanctions against the state-run oil company and its U.S. subsidiary, Citgo.
One of the principal reasons for PDVSA's dire straits at the time its U.S. subsidiary hired Rivera is that dozens of Venezuelan senior officials and connected businessmen stole billions of dollars from the national oil company through bribery, loan and currency-exchange schemes, according to a series of criminal cases filed in Miami, Houston and New York.
In Miami, federal prosecutors have seized $450 million in bank accounts, real estate and other assets from various Venezuelan defendants and others who have been prosecuted for money laundering charges. Among them: Chavez's former national treasurer, Alejandro Andrade, who owned horse farms in affluent Wellington in Palm Beach County and held Swiss bank accounts.
