A former career U.S. diplomat has agreed to plead guilty to charges of working for decades as a secret agent for communist Cuba, seemingly putting an end to one of the most high-profile espionage cases in the history of the U.S. foreign service.
Victor Manuel Rocha, who also formerly served as the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, was charged in December 2023 with having secretly passed information to the communist-run Cuban government since 1981 while he was working for the U.S. State Department.
Mr. Rocha initially pleaded not guilty in mid-February to charges of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government, acting as an agent of a foreign government, and making false statements to obtain a U.S. passport.
However, during a hearing in federal court in Miami on Feb. 29, attorneys for the 73-year-old indicated that he planned to change his initial not-guilty plea to guilty.
The change was part of a plea deal, according to the Associated Press. The publication reported that Mr. Rocha replied “I am in agreement” when the judge asked him if he wanted to change his initial plea.
Mr. Rocha is due to be sentenced at a hearing on April 12.
Diplomat Sought Multiple High-Ranking Roles
However, prosecutors allege that Mr. Rocha secretly worked as a covert agent for the Cuban government for more than 40 years and purposefully sought out and obtained positions within the U.S. government that would provide him with access to nonpublic information and the ability to affect U.S. foreign policy.In court filings, prosecutors claimed that Mr. Rocha—a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Colombia—was recruited by Cuba’s spy agency, the Directorate of Intelligence, in 1981 and began supporting its clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against Washington after securing his position at the State Department.
That job role provided him with easy access to various classified information, according to prosecutors.
After his State Department employment ended, Mr. Rocha also conducted other acts aimed at supporting Cuba’s intelligence services, including working as an adviser to the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, a joint command of the U.S. military whose area of responsibility includes Cuba, from about 2006 until about 2012.
Rocha ‘Abused His Position of Trust’
Mr. Rocha also served on the White House’s National Security Council.Prosecutors said he concealed his double life from Washington officials, allowing him to engage in additional clandestine activity.
Mr. Rocha provided false and misleading information to the United States to maintain his secret mission, traveled outside the United States to meet with Cuban intelligence operatives, and made false and misleading statements to obtain travel documents, according to the DOJ.
Mr. Rocha was ultimately arrested after admitting in a series of meetings in 2022 and 2023 with an undercover FBI agent posing as a covert Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence representative that he had been working for Cuba for decades.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said Mr. Rocha had “abused his position of trust in the U.S. government to advance the interests of a foreign power.”
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
