(DCWatchdog.com) – An utterly outrageous case exposing foreign communist infiltration of the US government has seen a former US ambassador slapped with a possibly too-lenient 15-year prison sentence for spying on the United States on behalf of the regime in Cuba over four decades.
Victor Manuel Rocha, aged 73, who held the position of US ambassador to Bolivia from the years 2000 to 2002, was handed down a 15-year incarceration sentence for his role as a spy for Cuba, CBS News and The Daily Caller report.
At the end of last week, Rocha admitted his guilt as he confessed to having operated as an intelligence agent for Cuba over a span exceeding 40 years.
Initially, Rocha pleaded not guilty in February 2024, but later altered his stance to a guilty plea.
The proceedings in a Miami court encountered complications when Judge Beth Bloom questioned the sufficiency of the plea deal, highlighting its omission of provisions for victim restitution and the revocation of citizenship.
Despite these challenges, the prosecution maintained that the 15-year sentence was appropriate, citing Rocha’s advanced age and the improbability of him surviving the duration of his imprisonment.
Subsequently, the plea agreement was revised to include compensation for victims, and the matter of stripping Rocha of his citizenship would be deliberated upon separately in a civil court.
“For most of his life, Mr. Rocha lived a lie,” David Newman, a leading official on national security at the Justice Department, told a press conference.
“While holding various senior positions in the US government, he was secretly acting as the Cuban government’s agent. That is a staggering betrayal of the American people,” the official added.
The basis for the FBI’s suspicion of the former US official acting as a spy for Cuba remains somewhat undisclosed, though court filings refer to a tip received prior to November 2022, according to CBS News.
Following this tip, the FBI surveilled Rocha’s interactions with an undercover agent, whom Rocha purportedly believed was a representative of Cuban intelligence.
According to the court documents, throughout the year, Rocha described the US as an adversary and opined that its activities had significant and widespread repercussions, as stated by the outlet.
He expressed that his primary concern was any actions by the US that might threaten the communist Cuban leadership or the revolution itself.
The complaint also disclosed that as recent as 2017, Rocha had meetings with his Cuban contacts, initially traveling from Miami to the Dominican Republic with his American passport, before using a Dominican passport for his subsequent visits to Panama and Havana, according to the report.
The documents further suggest that Rocha, who was appointed ambassador by then-President Bill Clinton, was directed by Cuban intelligence to lead a seemingly ordinary life externally.
To disguise his covert activities, he adopted the persona of a conservative.
Possessing high-level security clearances, Rocha had access to critical information. It is likely he provided significant assistance to Cuba, notably during his tenure overseeing Cuban affairs at the National Security Council among other diplomatic roles.
Although not indicted for espionage, which entails harsher penalties, Rocha was convicted of acting as a foreign agent.
This charge, sometimes referred to as “espionage lite,” was employed due to insufficient evidence for more grave charges, an issue possibly exacerbated by the elapse of time since the alleged activities.
The case was described by Attorney General Merrick Garland as “one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent.”
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