Ex-envoy sentenced after admitting to spying for Cuba

A former U.S. ambassador was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges he served for decades as a secret agent for Cuba’s spy agency.

The Justice Department had described the acts of Manuel Rocha, 73, as one of the most serious, highest-reaching infiltrations of the U.S. government in history.

“Today’s plea and sentencing brings to an end more than four decades of betrayal and deceit by the defendant,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in a statement dated Friday.

The guilty plea and sentencing came after a yearlong undercover operation conducted by an FBI agent posing as a Cuban spy in 2022. During the operation, the undercover agent secretly recorded Rocha detailing his own spy work and repeatedly referring to the United States as “the enemy,” according to the Justice Department.

Rocha told the FBI agent his spy work was “more than a grand slam” and he “strengthened the Revolution … immensely,” the Justice Department alleged. Prosecutors also said Rocha told the undercover FBI agent Cuba’s General Directorate of Intelligence “asked me … to lead a normal life.”

After he entered a not guilty plea, Rocha agreed to plead guilty in February to charges of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government. Prosecutors at the time dropped 13 other charges, including wire fraud and making false statements, The Associated

Press reported. On Friday, Rocha also pleaded guilty to acting as an agent of a foreign government.

The former State Department employee, who also served on the National Security Council and as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, admitted to spying on the United States for more than 40 years, starting covert operations as early as 1973. Born in Colombia, Rocha became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978 and began ascending the ranks of the State Department in 1981, prosecutors said.