Former Diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha admits to being Cuba spy for decades

The latest of several high-profile U.S. leaders charged or investigated for having improper relationships with other countries, Victor Rocha has admitted to spying for Cuba’s intelligence agency for four decades. 

New Jersey’s US Senator Bob Menendez is charged with serving as an unregistered agent for Egypt and New York City Mayor Eric Adams is being investigated by the FBI to determine whether he conspired with the Turkish government during his 2021 mayoral campaign.

Rocha, 73, told Judge Beth Bloom on Thursday that he would change his plea, indicating he is prepared to plead guilty to two counts of being a covert agent for the Cuban government.

“This action exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Dec. 4, 2023, that Victor Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. government employee, had been arrested and faced federal charges for secretly acting for decades as an agent of the Cuban government.

Rocha joined the State Department in 1981 and served for over 20 years, rising to the level of ambassador. After leaving the State Department, he served from 2006-2012 as an adviser to the U.S. Southern Command, a joint U.S. military command that handles operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The DOJ charged Rocha in December for working as a covert agent for Cuba’s General Directorate of Intelligence since 1981, the same year he started working at the State Department.

He was accused of using access to classified information and foreign policy to assist Cuba. He faced counts of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government and using a passport obtained via a false statement.

Prosecutors are expected to drop the wire fraud charge, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years, according to the Times. Rocha pleaded not guilty earlier in February to the initial charges filed against him by the DOJ.

For over 40 years, Rocha acted as a covert agent of the Cuban government, seeking out employment with the U.S. government that provided him with access to non-public information and the ability to affect U.S. foreign policy.

Between 1981 and 2002, Rocha was employed at the State Department and he held several senior positions in the U.S. government.

Those included service on the National Security Council, with special responsibility for Cuba, among other things. It included service as Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba. And it also included service as the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia from 1999 to 2002.

After leaving the State Department, Rocha served as an advisor to the Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, the area of responsibility of that U.S. military command includes Cuba.

The complaint alleges that Rocha sought out and used his positions within the United States government to support Cuba’s clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against the United States.

The widow of Oswaldo Payá, a prominent Cuban opposition leader who is widely believed to have died in a car crash caused by Cuban state security officials, filed a civil lawsuit in Miami on Thursday against Rocha, after the former U.S. ambassador agreed to plead guilty to charges of acting as an unregistered agent of Cuba.

“I seek what I have sought all along: for the truth, for justice, and for the regime and its accomplices to stop acting with impunity,” said Ofelia Acevedo, who noted Rocha was a spy for Cuba at the time of Payá’s death in 2012.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Miami-Dade circuit court, seeks compensation for the wrongful death of Payá, which it claims was “a direct and proximate result of [Rocha’s] actions as a covert agent for the Cuban terrorist dictatorship.”