by Becky Pallack, John Washington and Audrey NielsenJune 17, 2025
Originally published in Arizona Luminaria and used with permission.
If elected to Congress to represent Southern Arizona, Republican candidate Jimmy Rodriguez would have to ask his probation officer’s permission to travel to Washington D.C..
Or he would have to get a court order that would update the rules of his federal probation.
Rodriguez is on probation after he pleaded guilty to felony fraud in 2023 for falsifying federal loan applications for his business. In 2024, a federal judge sentenced Rodriguez to five years of probation. He must pay more than $116,000 in restitution in the fraud case. Rodriguez also owes more than $360,000 in federal administrative fines related to his failure to file campaign finance reports from 2020 to 2022.
Rodriguez remains subject to probation conditions — including restrictions on his ability to travel — until his probation ends in July 2029, which would cover his entire term in office if elected.
“I don’t see any issues at all,” Rodriguez told Arizona Luminaria about potential difficulties traveling if he is elected. “The court is very understanding as long as I follow the rules. I don’t foresee it being an issue at all.”
Rodriguez is one of three Republicans seeking his party’s nomination to run for Congress in the special election in District 7. The winner of the special election will serve in the U.S. House through 2026.
Rodriguez, 49, previously ran for Congress in District 8 in 2020, and he has already declared his interest in running for Congress in the 2026 election cycle.
Arizona Luminaria and Sunlight Research Center checked the background of each candidate running for Congress this year.
Felony conviction and business dealings
Rodriguez’s small business, Keene Performance, builds parts and engines for race cars and off-road vehicles. The company is also called Keene Powersports or Keene Motorsports, and he uses the trade names Keene Racing and Driven Performance.
During the pandemic, Rodriguez applied to the COVID-19 Relief Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for help keeping the small business going.
He received two PPP loans for Keene Performance: One PPP loan for $145,500 was approved on Feb. 1, 2021, and one for $52,200 was approved on April 16, 2020.
Rodriguez was ultimately charged and pleaded guilty to defrauding the government in his loan applications to the Small Business Administration.
Rodriguez was charged for having “willfully and knowingly [made] materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations in a loan application” for a PPP loan for his company, submitting false information about his company’s average monthly payroll and number of employees.
“It was a tough time for me,” Rodriguez said. He explained that he was trying to stay in business and keep his employees on staff. He also said that he could have fought the charges.
“They were alleging tax evasion, money laundering, they were trying to throw a bunch of things at me,” he said.
He said that he originally applied for a standard small business loan from the government. After delays and a denial, he applied for the PPP loan, and said he always had the intention of paying it back.
Prosecutors also alleged that Rodriguez fraudulently submitted a PPP loan application for his 2020 congressional campaign committee Jimmy Rodriguez for Congress and four COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications for Keene Performance. He denied to Arizona Luminaria any fraudulent filings for his 2020 campaign, but said that he may have used a different employee ID number in those filings, which led federal investigators to inquire about his campaign finances.
In 2024, after Rodriguez’s guilty plea, a federal judge sentenced Rodriguez to five years of probation and to pay restitution to the Small Business Administration totalling $116,218, to be paid in monthly payments of $200.
His probation began in July 2024 and will last 60 months, until July 2029.
During the probation period, Rodriquez is subject to restrictions on travel and is required to meet with his probation officer, among other court-ordered terms. “You must not knowingly leave the federal judicial district where you are authorized to reside without first getting permission from the court or the probation officer,” it says in the conditions.
Get Arizona Luminaria's weekly emailSign up“COVID was unprecedented, it devastated so many people,” Rodriguez said, explaining he was focused on staying in business and never intended to defraud anyone.
He added that he signed a notarized statement promising, if elected, to give back the majority of his congressional paycheck. He shared with Arizona Luminaria an image of the letter, specifying that he would only take $20,000 of the $174,000 salary, donating the rest to “non-profit organizations and community initiatives benefitting CD-07.”
Around the same time Rodriguez said he was struggling financially, he filed a financial disclosure report for a 2020 run for Congress in Vermont. He reported assets including more than $5 million in “minted gold and silver coins bar and ingots,” an estate in Arizona valued over $1 million, over $500,000 in liquid cash, and Keene Performance valued at over $1 million.
Campaign finance
Rodriguez is also in trouble over campaign finance reporting.
His campaign, his JD Rodriguez for Congress committee, and his Jimmy Rodriguez for Congress committee have not filed any campaign finance disclosure reports this campaign cycle as of June 16.
The Federal Elections Commission governs campaign finance and requires candidates to file paperwork that tells the public how their campaigns are funded and how money is spent.
Rodriguez owes $364,381 in unpaid FEC administrative fines across 12 cases from 2020 to 2022 for failing to file required campaign finance disclosures. With payment deadlines lapsed, all 12 cases have been referred to the Treasury Department for collections.
The FEC sent Rodriguez a request for additional information about his missing April 2025 quarterly campaign finance filing on April 30.
Additionally, Rodriguez has not filed a Financial Disclosure Report with the House as of June 16, according to the public House Financial Disclosure Report database. On May 7 Rodriguez requested and was granted an extension to June 14.
In a radio interview with KAWC Yuma in May, Rodriguez said he is “self-funding” his campaign and has small donations from friends and family. Even self-funded campaigns are required to file with the FEC if they raise more than $5,000.
Voter registration and residency
Arizona state law stipulates that the right to vote and hold public office is suspended for a person convicted of a felony in any court for the entire period of their probation and until they have paid all victim restitution imposed by their sentencing.
However, federal law imposes no such restriction on individuals convicted of a felony running for Congress, and Arizona law states that candidates for Congress are not subject to the “qualified elector” requirement, which states: “Except for a candidate for United States senator or representative in Congress, a candidate for public office shall be a qualified elector at the time of filing and shall reside in the county, district or precinct that the person proposes to represent.”
The rules go on to say: “A candidate for partisan public office shall be continuously registered with the political party of which the person desires to be a candidate beginning no later than the date of the first petition signature on the candidate’s petition through the date of the general election at which the person is a candidate.”
Because of his felony conviction, Rodriguez lost his right to vote, meaning he is not registered to vote and he can’t run for state or local offices.
Rodriguez signed a nomination paper declaring under penalty of perjury that he is a “qualified elector,” though he is set to remain on probation until 2029 and is still paying restitution.
Rodriguez has used a variety of addresses in legal documents.
Court records show Rodriguez was born in Corona, California and until recently lived in Perris, California. On his nomination paper, Rodriguez lists a home address in Peoria and a post office address in Yuma. On his statement of candidacy paperwork with the FEC, he listed a Yuma and a Glendale address.
His Peoria address is in Congressional District 8, although he is running to represent District 7.
Living within the district boundaries is not a requirement to run for a U.S. House seat. The only requirements are to: be at least 25 years old, be a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and live in the state you want to represent at the time of the election (but not necessarily the specific district).
Other Republican candidates’ histories
Daniel Butierez, one of Rodriguez’s two Republican competitors, also has faced charges, and served 10 years in prison. Butierez says he was falsely imprisoned and never officially convicted — a claim upheld by a judge’s ruling. He has been open about his experience in prison, and says that it’s one of the reasons he feels called to run for office.
According to court records, in July 1992 a jury found Butierez guilty of unlawful offer to sell marijuana with a weight greater than eight pounds. At the sentencing hearing, the trial court ruled that the evidence had not established the marijuana weighed more than eight pounds and so found Butierez guilty of the lesser offense of offering to sell less than one pound of marijuana. The court suspended the sentence and placed him on probation for three years. Then in July 1994, the court revoked his probation and sentenced him to an aggravated prison term of 10 years.
“I spent years fighting the State to fix my record,” Butierez said.
In 2020 a judge found the 1992 conviction was void and vacated the conviction, stating “the court finds clear and convincing evidence establishing that the defendant was convicted of an offense that the defendant did not commit.
Butierez has had other run-ins with the law. Court records show he was charged with assault in 2018. The charge was vacated in a bench trial a few months later. He was previously charged with assault in 2009 and the charge was dismissed. Both instances were self defense, Butierez said.
Arizona Luminaria found that Jorge Rivas, the third Republican running in this race, did not have significant legal history to merit an explanation to voters.
Corrections and clarifications: This article was updated after publication to include additional comments from Butierez and to clarify that his conviction was vacated.
Credits Sunlight Research Center provided research and data analysis.
