David Rivera criminal associate flees authorities

Rep. David Rivera (R-Crook) In case you are just tuning in, South Florida GOPer Rep. David Rivera is under criminal investigation for massive electoral shenanigans. The quick backstory:

Rivera fears 2010 nemesis Joe Garcia, so when the Democrat entered his party's primary, the incumbent decided to try and knock him off. But unlike Missouri, where Sen. Claire McCaskill helped Todd Akin win his primary the legal way'by running ads boosting Akin, Rivera took a more, er, creative approach.

He recruited a hotel worker to run in the Democratic primary, hoping to syphon away enough African American voters (where Garcia runs strong) to let a weaker Democrat win in the three-way race. To pay for this fake campaign, Rivera stuffed envelopes with up to $43,000 in cash. That's obviously a big no-no in the world of campaign finance law.

Confronted with this wrongdoing, Rivera has resorted to outright hilarity:

Rivera ' who denies ever knowing Sternad ' also produced a copy of a new campaign report for Sternad that purported to show, for the first time, that the Democrat's campaign had paid Rapid Mail.

Rivera didn't explain how he got the report, and Federal Elections Commission officials told the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald on Wednesday that the document had not been received yet by the FEC.

He doesn't even know how to properly plant fake evidence! Sigh. Sternad later tried to amend campaign finance reports to claim that he had loaned his campaign $64,000 for his race. He makes $30,000 per year at his job.
Ana Alliegro
Late last week, the case took a turn for the even more bizarre. Rivera associate and self-styled (on Twitter) "Conservative bad girl" Ana Alliegro ran Sternad's "campaign," so the FBI wanted to talk to her.

A key witness in a federal investigation involving U.S. Rep. David Rivera failed to show up for an interview with prosecutors and the FBI one day after agents raided her Miami apartment and removed her computer, cellphone and other items.

Yup, Rivera's "bad girl" consultant friend is on the lam!

The walls are closing in on the corrupt congressman. He was able to work South Florida's corrupt criminal-justice system last year to weasel out of one criminal indictment, but he's now got at least two federal grand juries investigating him. Republicans can't replace him on the ballot, and the polling is looking fantastic.

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