7/13/17- Miami- Andres Rivero, with Rivero Mestre. ( J. Albert Diaz)
Andr s Rivero was on a yearslong winning streak when he learned a personal lesson about shades of gray that made him walk away from gleaming prospects and a coveted job.
He knew it was time to leave his position as a federal prosecutor when he declined to pursue a perjury charge against a woman involved in a public corruption case.
Perjury is perilous for prosecutors, who must go beyond proving a lie, and also show intent to deceive.
You cannot be afraid, Rivero said.
At that time he was 33, Harvard-educated and a rising star in the legal community. He saw his work in black and white.
Being a prosecutor should be a young person's game, because it's very important to be impassioned about what you're doing. To do that, there has to be a certain sense of righteousness, he said. You have to believe that you're doing the right thing. I certainly felt that the whole time.
In his first year as a prosecutor, he'd tried about 15 cases and continued to be an aggressive prosecutor.
All I was interested in doing was trying cases, he said. In the four that followed, he collected a slew of victories a point of youthful pride he has since reconsidered.
There's an interesting book right now based on an expression that [former FBI Director] James Comey used when he was a U.S. attorney. He asked his prosecutors to raise their hands if they hadn't lost any trials. A bunch of people are very proud. They raise their hands, Rivero said. And then Comey told them, 'Welcome to the Chicken Shit Club.' Because his point was if you don't lose, you're only doing chicken shit.
Rivero had claimed major victories in landmark trials like the one in United States v. General Development Corp., one of the longest in the Southern District of Florida. It took 144 trial days to present that case, with the main defendant testifying under direct examination for 11.
I did a four-day cross examination. I've never heard of such a thing, Rivero said. And it was tight.
But he had never lost as a prosecutor.
I was a member in good standing of the Chicken Shit Club, he quips.
When the time came to consider the perjury charge, Rivero was convinced he had sufficient evidence for an indictment and conviction until defense attorneys persuaded him otherwise. If he convicted the woman of perjury, they told him, she'd no longer be useful in tackling the bigger fish: the politician for whom she'd allegedly lied. Rivero made a tough choice. He let her go.