Ex-congressman sued over work with Venezuela’s Maduro
— A consulting firm owned by a former Miami congressman who was roommates with Sen. Marco Rubio and shared his anti-communist politics has been sued over allegedly breaking a $50 million consulting contract with Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.
The lawsuit against David Rivera’s Interamerican Consulting was filed Wednesday in New York federal court by Maduro’s opponents who now control the U.S. subsidiary of PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-run oil giant.
According to the lawsuit, PDVSA in early 2017 hired Interamerican for three months of consulting work aimed at improving PDVSA’s “long-term reputation” and
“standing” among “targeted stakeholders” in the U.S.
But the lawsuit alleges that the Cuban-American Republican failed to describe any work that he had actually performed, preparing just two of seven promised bi-weekly progress reports while collecting the first $15 million of the agreed-to $50 million.
At the time, Maduro was trying to curry favor with the Trump administration, avoiding outright criticism of the new U.S. president while funneling $500,000 to his inaugural committee through Citgo, PDVSA’s Houston-based subsidiary.
The effort fell flat. Encouraged by Rubio, who arranged a White House meeting between President Donald Trump and the wife of jailed opposition activist Leopoldo Lopez, the U.S. gradually ratcheted up pressure on Maduro and in August 2017 slapped the first of gradually more restrictive sanctions on PDVSA.
The $50 million PDVSA agreed to pay Interamerican, which lists as its business address Rivera’s Miami home, dwarfs the $12.5 million that Maduro agreed this year to pay Florida law firm Foley Lardner for five months of public relations and lobby work. Foley Lardner later backed out of the agreement amid an outcry from conservative critics who accused it of carrying water for a socialist dictator.
The lawsuit says Rivera “performed no meaningful services under the Agreement, and certainly did not perform the level of services that might reasonably be expected for a fee of approximately $17 million per month.”