Al’s Loupe

Is it finally over for David Rivera?

By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alvaro@progresoweekly.com

Now it’s up to us. Or how much more evidence of delinquent behavior do Miami voters need before they stop supporting the at this point non-indicted, but far from honest and ethical, politician David Rivera? And although evidence presented last week by Miami Herald reporters showed there was great possibility of Rivera having broken the law during the recently completed democratic primary election, Tuesday night’s account by reporters Manny Garcia and Marc Caputo may have sealed the deal.

New and damming evidence points to David Rivera masterminding a “shadow campaign that might have broken federal law” against his political nemesis Joe Garcia. The campaign, reports The Miami Herald, was fueled by a $43,000 secret, slush fund that helped to pay for almost a dozen mailings for failed Democratic Party candidate Justin Lamar Stenard. The money delivered to vendors in envelopes stuffed with hundred dollar bills.

Rivera’s style reminds me of what was taken for granted around here in the 1970s and 1980s. A place where cocaine traffickers would show up at banks and stores and deposit money or pay for their purchases with brown bags full of U.S. currency. And get away with it…

Everyone knew where the money came from. Nobody seemed to care. If you don’t understand just watch the Al Pacino movie Scarface. If at times it seems exaggerated, it wasn’t.

Which brings me back to Rivera’s style. How can a member of the U.S. Congress continue to break the law and get away with it? Or is the impunity with which Rivera operates in this area standard operating procedure – a la Scarface?

As I’ve written about many times before, let me remind you, again, who David Rivera is. Here are some interesting Rivera tidbits:

– There were his juicy and profitable two for one deals: Serving as his own campaign treasurer, Rivera was accused of double-billing his campaign account as well as his legislative travel account.

– Rivera has often used campaign funds to pay for expenses on his personal credit cards.

– There’s the case of $175,000 in political donations that Rivera NEVER disclosed.

– There’s close friend, lobbyist and ‘campaign consultant’ Esther Nuhfer who was paid by the Rivera campaign $250,000 and days later withdrew, IN CASH, $190,000 from her business accounts. Where’d that money end up?

– Rivera’s mother received payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for work done by Rivera for Flagler Dog Track. David preferred people didn’t know he was charging for work done on behalf of gambling interests in Florida – while he was a state legislator. That’s why a cashier’s check of more than $95,000 endorsed by his mother, which suddenly disappeared into thin air, is so interesting.

– There’s the $500,000 payment he received for his (maybe illegal) work (while a state legislator) for the Magic City Casino that he seems to have forgotten to report to the IRS.

– In an earlier, now forgotten campaign, Rivera is accused of running a courier driving a delivery vehicle on the Palmetto Expressway, one of Miami’s most dangerous highways. Apparently on purpose. The reason: the courier was carrying flyers not favorable to Rivera in his first political campaign.

– A person named David Rivera is accused of badly beating a girlfriend in the 1990s. Rivera denies he was that David Rivera. Records have been lost. Persons who have spoken to the victim say she confirmed it was David the politician.

In this most recent incident both Rivera and Stenard deny working together and therefore doing no wrong. But, with Rivera by now, there’s much more than smoke when considering the saying that goes “where there’s smoke there’s fire”.

I am reminded of Scarface’s sidekick in the movie, played excellently by Cuban American actor Steven Bauer? Rivera would be perfect for his part if they were to remake the movie. And I mention a sidekick because I am convinced there are people behind the scene pulling strings probably as guilty (or guiltier) as Rivera.

Or where is all this cash coming from?