Investigators look into David Rivera’s ‘thank you’ spending
David Rivera spent more money saying `thank you’ to voters than any other Florida lawmaker. Now investigators are examining some of those expenses.
By Scott Hiaasen and Patricia Mazzei
From The Miami Herald
After dropping out of a state Senate race last year to run for Congress, David Rivera set aside tens of thousands of dollars from his dormant Senate campaign account to say “thank you” to supporters of a race he never intended to finish.
Rivera paid the money to a company called ACH Fundraising Strategies — a Miami-based business founded by the daughter of a longtime aide. He cut a $50,000 check to ACH on July 15, 2010 — the day before the firm was incorporated as a business.
Those “thank you campaign” dollars to ACH are now being scrutinized as part of an expanding criminal investigation of the Republican congressman’s personal and campaign accounts by Miami-Dade police and prosecutors, The Miami Herald has learned.
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From 2004 to 2010, Rivera spent almost $243,000 in campaign donations on “thank you” expenses — far more than any other state candidate, and accounting for almost one-quarter of all the thank-you money spent in Florida during that period, a Miami Herald analysis of state campaign data found.
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The $75,000 paid to ACH last year came from Rivera’s state Senate campaign — a campaign Rivera abandoned when he decided to run for Congress on Feb. 25, 2010. Rivera’s Senate account held about $379,000 in unspent donations when he launched his congressional run, but campaign-finance laws prohibited him from transferring that money to the federal race.
Rivera, who served as the treasurer of his Senate campaign, made his first $50,000 payment to ACH about five months later, on July 15 — one day before ACH was incorporated, records show. The company received $25,000 more on Aug. 30.
ACH was founded by Alyn Cruz Higgins, 31, a Miami political fundraiser and consultant. Her mother, Alina Garcia, is an aide on Rivera’s congressional staff, after working for Rivera for years in the state Legislature.
