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Mulvihill’s investigation as a shakedown for access to Sen. Marco Rubio and one-time presidential nominee Mitt Romney. But others whisper that Rivera has promised to offer up a bigger fish. Could be Rubio, his one-time BFF and roommate in Tallahassee, who has since distanced himself from the former congressman, perhaps because of some lofty White House aspirations that are not likely to happen — in this cycle, anyway.
Either way, this lack of or delay in action should raise an eyebrow high enough to warrant a Department of Justice investigation into the handling of this case. Or would that have to be requested by a current congress member? Who would be bold enough? Hello, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz?
Meanwhile, Alliegro has to be home by 9 o’clock every night. She is still recovering from an injury sustained in custody. She has to report to not one but two corrections or parole officers and pee in a cup regularly. She and her parents live in fear that the FBI will come knocking down her door again — because, apparently, they don’t have the right or enough information.
And what most journalists want to ask her is if she was in love with David and if she feels betrayed by David and if she thinks David is a coward. Um, duh! They’re eating up the details of how he traveled to Central America to visit her and how he paid Alliegro’s rent and her passage. “I chose the country and he helped me get there,” she told Oscar Haza Wednesday night, adding that both times she left the U.S., she did not have any charges against her.
“There was a circus of press at my house. I thought the best thing to do was to disappear for a while. I thought I would come back when it had gone away,” Alliegro told Ladra.
She was also admittedly in love with Rivera. So much so that she wanted to marry him. So much so that she didn’t bother to correct people in Nicaragua who called him “el esposo,” or “the husband.” So much so that she believed him when he told her he would routinely park outside the federal detention center to feel closer to her send her mental vibes. So much so that she still wants to believe that today.
Sometimes she sounds angry and bitter. “I gave him time to do the right thing. I was loyal,” she said. “I kept thinking he would say something, do something to get me out.”
But she also sounds forgiving. She pardons Rivera’s behavior by saying that he is not wired correctly. And she stresses that she doesn’t necessarily want him to get in trouble. Not really. “Let him fight if he thinks he’s got a shot,” she told Haza. “I did.”
In fact, she still prays for Rivera every night, she told Ladra, and pointed to a cross on which she hung a locket with the words Property Of on one side and Rivera’s birthday and initials on the other, above “xoxoxo.” He gave it to her this past Christmas.
Most of the time, however, Alliegro simply sounds proud of the ballsy way she responded to the situation, of her own behavior. Not during the commission of the crime, which she says now was a stupid mistake that she didn’t think was such a big deal. More like standard operating procedure for Miami elections. No. She is proud of how she behaved during and through the investigation, her incarceration and sentence to one year house arrest and one year probation.
“I’m a woman, but I’m the one with the pants on,” she told Haza.
She also thinks all of this happened for a reason.
Alliegro learned so much in prison, where she made $10 a month cutting other inmates’ hair and listened to 10-12 hours of Cuban AM radio every day, which has greatly improved her Spanish. She learned more than just crochet and how to cook gourmet with a microwave and roll chamomile cigarettes out of tea and toilet paper. She learned that 80 percent of the women held in detention with her were put there by the actions of a man and that many were being extorted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for information (my word, not hers, Mr. Mulvihill). She learned that she wasn’t the only one being subjected to routine strip searches for no good reason. She learned how selective law enforcement can be.
And she wants to start a non-profit organization to protect human rights in this country, in our federal jails, and to see reform in the way some federal prosecutions are handled.
“Campaign staffers are always the ones
to fall, but the electeds and the people of power never do,” Alliegro told Ladra, briefly bringing up Jeffrey Garcia, Joe Garcia’s chief of staff, who was sentenced to 90 days (but via the State Attorney’s Office) for soliciting absentee ballot requests without the voters’ permission.
Another fine example of where our FBI and prosecutors are putting their priorities while actual ballots are being stolen from bullied elderly voters in Hialeah and everyone from the mayor to certain state legislators are selling our farm to their friends and families or designated special interests.
I guess Ana and Jeff were low-hanging fruit.
But the question remains, if the prosecutor now has enough info from Alliegro’s testimony to get his hands on a big juicy mango like Rivera, why isn’t anyone biting into him?
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Ana Sol Alliegro is back — with a vengeance and a story added by Ladra on
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