A former Republican congressman and longtime friend of Secretary of State Marco Rubio was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday for concealing a $50 million lobbying campaign conducted on Venezuela's behalf during the first Trump administration.

David Rivera of Miami has been jailed since his conviction in May on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent for the government of Nicolás Maduro. The foreign-agent count falls under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a Justice Department disclosure regime in place since 1938, which requires anyone paid to lobby or conduct public relations on behalf of a foreign government to publicly register and report those activities and payments.

Rivera, 61, appeared stone-faced as Judge Melissa Damian denounced him for betraying his life's mission. She noted that his many friends in Miami would surely judge him harshly had the millions of dollars come from Cuba's communist regime instead of from its allies in Caracas.

"Nobody would accept that's ok and I don't think this is different," the judge said. "There's no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime."

The case offered a rare glimpse into foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Latin America, underscoring Miami's dual reputation as a magnet for both anti-communist crusaders and corruption within its sizable exile population.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, and a top Washington lobbyist all testified at trial, saying Rivera had never mentioned his mammoth consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA.

Rivera was charged in 2022, during President Joe Biden's administration. Prosecutions for illegal foreign lobbying have plunged since Trump returned to the White House. What comes next remains open on several fronts: Rivera's lawyers have applied for a presidential pardon and plan to appeal, they are also defending him against a related foreign lobbying case in Washington, D.C., and Damian has yet to rule on the government's request that Rivera forfeit $20 million in criminal proceeds — decisions that together will shape how the long-running prosecution ends.

Rivera was tapped by Maduro's foreign minister, Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela's acting president — to persuade the first Trump administration to normalize relations with Caracas.

As part of that charm offensive, Rivera and co-defendant Esther Nuhfer, a political consultant, sought to manipulate influential friends, including Rubio and Sessions. Prosecutors argued at trial that the pair failed to disclose the lobbying as required because doing so would have ruined Rivera's reputation as an anti-communist stalwart. Nuhfer received a five-year sentence.

"The United States and the public were the true victims of this fraud," Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Cruz said. "He used his position of trust — and betrayed it consistently and repeatedly."

Rivera denied being a two-faced grifter. In an emotional 20-minute address to the court, he traced his life's journey from a childhood without a father in an immigrant Miami neighborhood to the halls of Congress, saying he had always been "fighting the good cause." Holding back tears, he begged for leniency, telling the judge that imprisonment would be tantamount to a "death sentence" given his age and the lingering effects of a battle with prostate cancer.

Trial evidence detailed how Rivera set up an encrypted chat group called MIA — for Miami — with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media tycoon Raúl Gorrín, who was subsequently charged in the U.S. with bribing top Venezuelan officials.

Group members used playful code words, according to copies of text messages presented to the jury: Maduro was the "bus driver," Sessions was "Sombrero," Rodríguez was "The Lady in Red," and their windfall payments were "La Luz," Spanish for "The Light." Rubio was known as "Miss Clairol" — because rubio means blond in Spanish.

Rivera's attorneys argued again on Friday that the former congressman believed he was under no disclosure requirement. They said the three-month, $50 million contract with his one-man consulting firm was focused on luring oil giant ExxonMobil back to Venezuela — commercial work that is generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act, whose disclosure requirements target political and influencing activity rather than routine business promotion.

"David Rivera does not deserve to die in prison because he failed to file a FARA registration," defense attorney Ed Shohat said.

The judge strenuously disagreed. "This is a serious offense. It's not about not filing a piece of paper."

Defense attorneys said Rivera's meetings with Rubio and Sessions were wholly distinct from that consulting work, and were focused on ushering in less hostile leadership in Venezuela — not unlike the Rodríguez government that took power after the U.S. ouster of Maduro in January.

Prosecutors, however, said Rivera used the contract with the Venezuelan oil giant's New York-based affiliate, PDV USA, as cover for illegal lobbying, and tried to conceal it by backdating documents and creating sham agreements — including one purporting to justify a $3.75 million wire transfer to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín's luxury yacht.

While arranging meetings for Rodríguez in New York, Caracas, Washington, and Dallas, Rivera roped in Sessions, who later tried to broker a meeting between Rodríguez and the ExxonMobil executive who took over as CEO when Rex Tillerson became Trump's first-term secretary of state.

The outreach quickly unraveled, however. Within six months of taking office, Trump sanctioned Maduro, labeled him a "dictator," and launched a "maximum pressure" campaign aimed at unseating the Venezuelan president.

Before serving in Congress from 2011 to 2013, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida legislator and shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio, who eventually became Florida House speaker.

Rivera had faced earlier controversy including allegations that he secretly funded a Democratic spoiler candidate in a 2012 congressional race — a matter federal prosecutors eventually dropped after a sizable fine was thrown out on appeal. He was also investigated — but never charged — over alleged campaign finance violations and a $1 million contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida Legislature.

Despite that history, Rivera continues to enjoy support among Miami's Cuban American establishment and in circles of power beyond. Friends of the former congressman, including the former president of Florida International University and Miami-Dade County's supervisor of elections, packed the courtroom to show their support. Sessions also sent a letter seeking leniency, describing his former congressional colleague as a devoted defender of democracy.

Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who is himself Cuban American, said he could not explain why some in Miami still stand by Rivera.

"He sold his anti-communism to communists to fill his greed," Reding Quiñones said at a press conference following the sentencing.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.