Manuel Rocha's stunning fall from grace could culminate in a lengthy prison term.
This image provided by the U.S. Justice Department and contained in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, shows Manuel Rocha during a meeting with a FBI undercover employee.MIAMI — A former career U.S. diplomat told a federal judge Thursday he will plead guilty to charges of working for decades as a secret agent for communist Cuba, an unexpectedly swift resolution to a case prosecutors called one of the most brazen betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service.
The brief hearing shed no new light on the question that has proved elusive since Rocha’s arrest in December: What exactly did he do to help Cuba while working at the State Department for two decades? That included stints as ambassador to Bolivia and top posts in Argentina, Mexico, the White House and the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
Typically in counterintelligence cases, the defendant is charged with espionage. But Rocha was accused of the lesser crimes of acting as a foreign agent, which carry maximum terms of between five and 10 years in prison, making it easier for prosecutors and Rocha to reach an agreement. Rocha made a series of recorded admissions to an undercover FBI agent who posed as a Cuban intelligence operative who reached out to Rocha on WhatsApp, calling himself “Miguel” and saying he had a message “from your friends in Havana.”
“It’s a day for reflection for all of us who knew and worked with him,” said Gumbiner, who served as acting U.S. ambassador to Cuba in 2017 and 2018. “Although the full extent of the damage he caused isn’t yet revealed, it’s hard to believe he didn’t pass along some very serious information that compromised our intelligence services and our own efforts against the Castro regime.”Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected] or https://www.ap.
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