Rivera bag woman Ana Alliegro busted in Nicaragua
The hangman’s noose tightened just a bit more around former member of Congress David Rivera’s neck on Friday. Ana Alliegro, Rivera bag woman in the Justin Lamar Sternad case, was arrested in Nicaragua and was to be deported to Miami today (7 March).
In a Miami Herald article, Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario quoted Glenda Zavala, general commissioner of the Nicaraguan National Police, as stating: “We received from the American embassy located in our country a request for her to be detained since she is accused in the state of Florida of conspiracy, illegal campaign donations and false statements for which there existed an arrested order against her.”
U.S. law enforcement sources have told Herald reporters that Alliegro will be charged with campaign election law violations and other related offenses.
According to the Herald, “Alliegro first fled to Nicaragua in 2012 after the FBI began investigating her and Rivera for their potential roles in a scheme to funnel secret money to a no-name candidate who appeared to do Rivera’s campaign dirty work.
“That candidate, Justin Lamar Sternad, subsequently pleaded guilty to breaking federal campaign-finance laws and lying about it.
“For the first time, in campaign-finance reports he updated in January, Sternad named Alliegro and Rivera as being central to the conspiracy to steer $81,486.15 to his campaign for congress against fellow Democrat Joe Garcia.
“Alliegro and Rivera, who have long denied wrongdoing, couldn’t be reached for comment.
“The bulk of the illegal money was used to pay for the production and mailing of campaign flyers, at least one of which attacked Garcia over his divorce.
“Sternad told The Herald and federal authorities at one point that Alliegro ran his Democratic campaign — an odd position for the self-described Republican ‘bad girl’ who was a close associate of the Republican congressman.”
Alliegro had lived in Granada, Nicaragua, since 2013. She was working in a beauty salon there.
“She (Alliegro) was arrested on March 4 in Granada, then coordination with Immigration [authorities] was made. At the time of arrest the person’s legal stay in Nicaragua had expired, so they immediately proceeded to the deportation,” Zavala told El Nuevo Diario.
At the Managua airport, waiting for a handcuffed Alliegro, were two FBI agents who would accompany her on the journey back to Miami.
DELVING INTO ANA ALLIEGRO
According to an article published in the Nicaraguan daily La Prensa in April of 2013, Alliegro lived in Granada, southeast of Managua, “for about three months and gave the appearance of being a wealthy beauty shop operator on Liberty Street, where she opened a salon that lasted only a few days.”
“According to research done by La Prensa, Alliegro set up a very luxurious beauty salon overnight, an investment that wasn’t exploited because she shut it down a few days after she opened it,” reporter Lucia Vargas wrote.
“She told some people that she was from New York, but everybody knew she was from Miami,” the article said.
In another article, published by La Prensa on May 1, 2013, the newspaper’s correspondent in neighboring Costa Rica wrote that Alliegro traveled constantly to that country. Immigration officials had records of her departures from Costa Rica but none of her arrivals in that country.
“Nicaragua and Costa Rica share a porous border,” correspondent Josué Bravo wrote, explaining that it was easy to slip unnoticed into Costa Rica from Nicaragua.
“That is why some people have only one-way travel records” on their passports, Bravo wrote.
[Photo of Ana Alliegro is from the Nicaraguan daily ‘La Prensa’.]
