MIAMI — Dozens of friends, relatives and former political colleagues are asking a federal judge to show leniency to former U.S. Rep. David Rivera when he is sentenced later this week, while prosecutors are urging the court to impose a significant prison term on the former Miami congressman for secretly acting as an agent of Nicolás Maduro’s government.

The competing appeals come ahead of Rivera’s sentencing Friday before U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian in Miami, following his conviction on charges stemming from a $50 million consulting agreement with a U.S. affiliate of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.

Rivera, 61, is asking Damian for no additional prison time — he has already spent about four months in custody — or, alternatively, a sentence of no more than a year and a day. Prosecutors say that would amount to a slap on the wrist for a sophisticated former politician who received millions of dollars while secretly lobbying U.S. officials on behalf of a foreign government and has shown no remorse since his conviction.

The disagreement over Rivera’s punishment is substantial. According to objections filed by his lawyers, the pre-sentencing report calculates an offense level corresponding to an advisory sentencing range of 262 to 327 months, or about 22 to 27 years. Rivera’s lawyers call that calculation “draconian,” arguing that sentencing enhancements and money-laundering guidelines have turned what was fundamentally a Foreign Agents Registration Act case into one carrying a potential sentence several times greater than the act’s five-year statutory maximum.

Prosecutors defend the use of the money-laundering guidelines and several proposed enhancements, saying the case involved more than $5 million in laundered funds and conduct involving national security.

They also contend Rivera deserves enhancements for his leadership role and obstruction of justice.

The final sentence will be up to Damian, who has already confronted many of the same questions when she sentenced Rivera’s co-defendant, former political consultant Esther Nuhfer, to five years on Aug. 18.

Rivera’s attorneys point to Damian’s comments at Nuhfer’s sentencing, when the judge said that despite the money-laundering convictions, “at the end of the day, this is a FARA case,” and used the Foreign Agents Registration Act’s five-year statutory maximum as the starting point for a downward variance.

Rivera argues that the same reasoning should apply to him and that any additional reduction should begin from 60 months.

Appeal for leniency

Rivera has submitted about 50 letters of support to Damian, filling about 95 pages and presenting a portrait of the former congressman markedly different from the one offered by prosecutors.

The letters come from relatives, longtime friends, lawyers and people Rivera met during a political career that included service in the Florida House of Representatives and one term in Congress. Among those writing on his behalf are former Florida lawmakers and political figures including Rachel Burgin, Christian Cámara and former Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera.

Burgin, a former state representative, describes Rivera as a mentor who helped her when she was a young legislator and asks Damian to consider the “full measure of his life,” including his years of public service.

Cámara, who says he has known Rivera since the two worked on Republican Sen. Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, points to Rivera’s health and the damage the prosecution has already inflicted on his reputation.

Rivera’s lawyers emphasize his age, prostate cancer, lack of prior criminal history and years of political and community work. They argue that incarceration would have an unusually severe effect on his remaining life expectancy.

Prosecutors are unmoved.

In their sentencing response, they describe Rivera as the leading participant in a scheme in which he and Nuhfer secretly sought to influence U.S. politicians while working for Venezuela’s government. They say the pair received $20 million and stood to collect tens of millions more.

The government also stresses that Rivera continues to maintain his innocence and has “never expressed any remorse for his conduct.” Prosecutors accuse him of trivializing his conviction by portraying the offense as essentially a failure to file a government registration form.

Rivera’s lawyers counter that maintaining his innocence should not be treated as an aggravating factor when he intends to challenge his conviction on appeal.

Dispute over key issue

The dispute goes back to the central issue contested during Rivera’s six-week trial.

Prosecutors say Rivera and Nuhfer acted as undisclosed agents of the Venezuelan government in an effort to normalize relations between Washington and Caracas. Their activities included arranging meetings involving then-Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuelan opposition leader Julio Borges and former Texas U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, as well as contacts with Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator at the time, and his staff.

Prosecutors also say Rivera helped arrange Sessions’ April 2018 trip to Caracas, where the congressman met Maduro.

Rivera continues to reject that interpretation.

In his objections to the pre-sentence report, his lawyers argue that trial evidence showed he was working to support Venezuela’s opposition and encourage Maduro’s removal through elections or negotiations. They contend that witnesses including Rubio, Borges and Sessions did not describe Rivera doing anything to help Maduro remain in power.

Rivera also maintains that another purpose of the consulting agreement was a commercial effort to persuade Exxon to resume drilling for oil in Venezuela.

The government says those arguments cannot erase the jury’s verdict. Jurors convicted Rivera of conspiracy and substantive foreign registration act violations after finding that he engaged in political activities in the United States as an agent of the Venezuelan government. Prosecutors argue that Rivera is essentially attempting to re-litigate factual questions the jury decided against him.

Allegations of obstruction

The sentencing dispute also extends beyond Rivera’s lobbying activities.

Prosecutors are seeking an obstruction-of-justice sentence enhancement, citing alleged false testimony and Rivera’s handling of two Florida properties subject to court restrictions.

One involved a home in Oviedo that prosecutors say Rivera and his former wife bought in 2017 using $515,000 in proceeds traceable to the offenses. A federal judge subsequently entered an order restricting transfers of the property.

Prosecutors say Rivera and his then-wife nevertheless signed a quit-claim deed in April 2025 transferring their interest in the house to Rivera’s sister. The deed was recorded two months later without notice to prosecutors or permission from the court, according to the government.

Rivera continued paying the property taxes, prosecutors said, including a $14,095 payment in March. They said Rivera’s lawyers subsequently characterized the transfer as a mistake, saying he believed restrictions on the property had been lifted.

The government cites a similar transfer involving a beachfront property in New Smyrna Beach.

After extensive litigation over the property, a judge determined there was probable cause to believe $141,494 used to purchase it was traceable to the charged offenses and restricted its transfer without government notice and court approval.

Prosecutors say Rivera and his former wife transferred their interest to his sister without obtaining that permission. Rivera continued paying the property taxes, and prosecutors said the property was listed for sale for $489,000 as of their Sept. 2 filing.

The government also accuses Rivera of giving false testimony during civil litigation in New York involving the consulting agreement and then introducing portions of that testimony at his criminal trial. Rivera disputes that the testimony was false and argues there is insufficient evidence that he intended to obstruct the criminal prosecution.

Rivera is separately challenging a proposed sentence enhancement for being an organizer or leader. His lawyers say the evidence instead showed Rivera, Nuhfer and their associates operating as equal partners, with payments divided equally and participants consulting one another rather than Rivera directing them.

‘No victims, no losses and no harm’

Rivera’s final sentencing reply takes an unusually combative tone.

His lawyers accuse prosecutors of seeking to “literally destroy the 61-year-old Rivera’s remaining life” and argue that three facts should dominate Damian’s decision: The case had no identified victims, produced no financial losses and caused no demonstrated change in U.S. policy.

They cite the pre-sentence report as saying there were no victims and that the effort to normalize relations between the United States and Venezuela was unsuccessful. Rivera’s lawyers also point to Damian’s comments at Nuhfer’s sentencing that U.S. policies did not appear to have changed because of the defendants’ actions.

Prosecutors say the absence of a conventional financial victim does not diminish the seriousness of secretly trying to influence U.S. foreign policy for another government.

They also ask Damian to consider Rivera’s other legal troubles, including pending federal tax-fraud charges and a separate Washington prosecution accusing him of receiving approximately $5.5 million from offshore sources in connection with efforts to help Venezuelan businessman Raúl Gorrín get removed from the U.S. sanctions list. Those charges remain pending.

For Rivera, Friday’s sentencing will turn not only on the convictions returned by the jury but on how Damian resolves competing views of their seriousness and the sentencing guidelines that apply.

His attorneys contend that applying the money-laundering guidelines produces a punishment wildly disproportionate to the underlying offense and point to substantially shorter sentences in other foreign-agent cases.

Prosecutors say Rivera’s case warrants significant incarceration because of the money involved, his political experience, the nature of the foreign government he represented, his alleged efforts to conceal his conduct and his continued refusal to accept responsibility.

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