Washington — A former U.S. ambassador formally pleaded guilty Friday to working for Cuban spy services for decades and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, bringing a quick end to a case that prosecutors described as one of the longest betrayals of the American government in history. .
Victor Manuel Rocha, former United States ambassador to Bolivia, was indicted in December, accused of spying for Cuban intelligence services for more than 40 years. Rocha, who lives in Miami, originally pleaded not guilty in mid-February, then reverse course later that month.
The resolution of the case was briefly thrown into doubt during a hearing Friday when U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom questioned whether Rocha’s plea agreement with prosecutors was strict enough because it lacked compensation for potential victims and did not revoke Rocha’s U.S. citizenship. Prosecutors argued that 15 years was enough given that the 73-year-old would likely die in prison.
The plea agreement was ultimately amended to include restitution for potential victims, which will be determined at a later date. Denaturalization is also possible in the form of civil action down the line.
Rocha also promised to cooperate with the government and provide details of his deception.
“For most of his life, Mr. Rocha lived a lie,” David Newman, a senior national security official at the Justice Department, said at a news conference after the sentencing. “While serving in various high positions within the U.S. government, he was secretly acting as an agent of the Cuban government. This is a stunning betrayal of the American people.”
Rocha’s work for Cuba
Lothar Speer
Little has been revealed about what Rocha did to help the communist regime or how he was able to influence American politics while working for the State Department for two decades. He held high-level security clearances that gave him access to top-secret information, according to the indictment, which could have made him a valuable asset to Cuba, which has long maintained hostile relations with states. -United.
But Rocha was not charged with espionage, but rather with acting as a foreign agent, which the Justice Department describes as “light espionage.” Acting as a foreign agent carries a shorter prison sentence. Newman suggested that the government did not have evidence to support the espionage charges because there was a very long interval between when the most serious behavior would likely have been committed and when the investigation began.
Attorney General Merrick Garland described the case as “one of the largest and most enduring infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent.”
Born in Colombia, Rocha moved to New York at the age of 10 after the death of his father. Her family lived with her uncle in Harlem, supported by her mother’s job in a sewing factory and food stamps. In 1965, a scholarship to attend the Taft School, an elite boarding school in Connecticut, changed the trajectory of his life, he told the school’s alumni magazine in 2004. But while there, he faced discrimination and contemplated suicide after his closest friend refused admission. roommates with him because of the color of his skin, he said.
Investigators said Rocha was recruited by the Cuban spy agency in Chile in 1973 after graduating from Yale University. That same year, Chile’s socialist president, Salvador Allende, was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup.
He became a naturalized American citizen in 1978 and also graduated from Harvard and Georgetown universities. His career at the State Department began in 1981 and served in various positions in Latin America. He briefly held an influential role on the White House National Security Council during the Clinton administration. His State Department career culminated with an ambassadorship to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002.
As ambassador to Bolivia, Rocha warned Bolivians that the election of left-wing coca grower Evo Morales, a protégé of Fidel Castro, as president would jeopardize U.S. aid to the country. The intervention was credited with helping to boost Morales’ reputation, and he thanked Rocha for being his “best campaign boss,” The New York Times reported in 2002.
Cuba was also Rocha’s responsibility during his tenure on the National Security Council and when he was stationed at the U.S. mission in Havana in the 1990s. After leaving the State Department, he served as an advisor to the commander of the United States Southern Command, whose area of responsibility includes Cuba.
His government positions allegedly gave him compartmentalized access to information regarding Cuba, including U.S. assessments of the Cuban regime, biographical profiles, details of secret U.S.-led programs, and diplomatic reports from around the world on the Cubans, according to John Feeley. , a former U.S. ambassador to Panama who once considered Rocha a mentor.
“He would have been extremely valuable to them,” Feeley told CBS News.
The State Department and the intelligence community are assessing possible harm to national security, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters after Rocha’s arrest. Assessing the damage is still ongoing, prosecutors said Friday, adding that it will be a “lengthy process” and they may never know the full extent of the damage caused.
Rocha’s lawyer, Jacqueline Arango, did not respond to a request for comment.
“The shock is total”
Ministry of Justice / AP
Details of how the FBI began to suspect Rocha of acting as a secret agent for Cuba are unclear, other than that he received a tip before November 2022, according to court documents . Over the next several months, the agency monitored Rocha as he met with an undercover FBI agent he believed to be a representative of the Cuban spy agency.
On November 15, 2022, the undercover agent sent the retired diplomat a WhatsApp message “from your friends in Havana,” according to the documents.
“I know you are a great friend of ours from your time in Chile,” the undercover agent told Rocha in a later phone call. The two men agreed to meet in person the next day.
During their conversations over the next year, Rocha called the United States an “enemy” and said that “what we did” was “huge” and “more than a grand slam”, according to court documents.
“My number one concern; my number one priority was… any action on the part of Washington that would endanger the lives of the leaders, or the revolution itself,” Rocha allegedly told the undercover agent.
The complaint also alleged that Rocha met with his Cuban agents as recently as 2017, first flying from Miami to the Dominican Republic using his U.S. passport and then using a Dominican passport to travel to Panama and Havana .
Rocha said the Cuban spy agency asked him to “lead a normal life,” and he ultimately created a cover story of “a right-wing person” to conceal his double life, according to the complaint.
Feeley, who worked under Rocha when he was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic, said that in recent years Rocha had become an “over-the-top Donald Trump type.” The two had stayed in touch since their assignment in the Dominican Republic, but when Feeley last saw Rocha in 2019, the previously apolitical Rocha had “fallen down a Trump-MAGA rabbit hole,” as Feeley puts it.
“It was really uncomfortable,” Feeley said, adding that he and his former colleagues never suspected it was a cover-up. “I’ve already gone through the whole cycle of grief here. The shock is complete.”
Feeley resigned as U.S. ambassador to Panama in 2018 due to political differences with the Trump administration.
Rocha did his job well and was generous with his mentoring, but he also had a strong ego and thought he was smarter than others, Feeley said.
On June 23, 2023, Rocha held his final meeting with the undercover FBI agent at an outdoor food court behind a Miami church. Prosecutors said Rocha became angry when the officer asked him, “Are you still with us?”
“I’m pissed,” Rocha allegedly responded, saying it was “like questioning my manhood. … It’s like you want me to drop them… and show you if I still have testicles.”
Why did a septuagenarian who had managed to evade detection for decades and was long retired from government service bite the FBI’s contacts so easily?
“My feeling is that he didn’t feel relevant,” Feeley said. “You do something for 40 years, it gives you some kind of purpose, and there’s no gold watch at the end.”
The Rocha affair is the latest high level penetration of the US government by the Cuban intelligence services, considered one of the most effective spy agencies in the world, but whose capabilities are often overlooked.
The affair was widely seen as a failure of U.S. counterintelligence, and Newman said it was “a reminder that we face espionage and internal risks from many countries.”
“We are of course focused on the threat from China and Russia. But we know that the espionage landscape is not limited to threats from those countries,” Newman said. “The Cuban government continues to infiltrate our government and undermine American security.”
Ivan Taylor contributed reporting.
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