Former US ambassador accused of being a Cuban agent signals guilty plea

A former U.S. ambassador accused of working as a secret agent for Cuba for decades indicated Thursday he will plead guilty, a move that would bring a swift end the lawsuit over one of the largest breaches of national security in years.

Manuel Rocha, 73, said in federal court in Miami that he would enter a change of plea, indicating he is willing to plead guilty. He was charged in December with acting as an agent of a foreign government and defrauding the United States. He is also charged with bank fraud and making false statements to obtain and use a U.S. passport.

Mr. Rocha is expected to plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors are expected to drop the remaining charges; The wire fraud charge carried a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Mr. Rocha’s lawyer indicated in court Thursday that she and prosecutors have reached an agreement on his possible prison sentence, The Associated Press reported, although details were not made public. His next court hearing is scheduled for April 12.

The indictment said that Mr. Rocha, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Bolivia who briefly served in a White House role under President Bill Clinton, had helped the Cuban government since at least 1981. He was stationed at the American mission in Havana during the indictment. the nineties.

“This action exposes one of the most far-reaching and longest infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said after Mr. Rocha’s arrest in December.

Mr. Rocha was born in Colombia and raised in New York. He worked in the State Department under Clinton and President George W. Bush, handling matters related to Latin America. He served as ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2012 as advisor to the US Military Command, which includes Cuba.

Federal prosecutors have said Cuba’s aggressive intelligence agency recruited Mr. Rocha in Chile in the early 1970s. Cuba, which has had hostile relations with the United States since the 1960s, has achieved remarkable success in infiltrating the U.S. national security establishment in recent decades.

The indictment against Mr. Rocha did not detail his dealings with the Cuban government or accuse him of sharing specific secrets. Notably, he was not charged with espionage, although his ability to access classified information would have been enormously valuable to Cuba and its allies.

Two other former U.S. officials, who were revealed as Cuban spies, struck plea deals that forced them to be interrogated about their knowledge of Havana’s intelligence efforts.

Ana Belén Montesa former analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty to being a Cuban agent after she was arrested in September 2001. Mrs. Montes became released last year.

Ms. Montes’ cooperation led the FBI to charge another former U.S. official accused of serving as a Cuban agent for years. That official, Marta Rita Velazquez, who worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development, fled to Sweden after Ms. Montes was arrested and is still on the run. An indictment against Ms. Velazquez was unsealed in 2013.

The second major Cuba espionage case in recent years involved Walter Kendall Myers, a former State Department official pleaded guilty in 2009 spying for Cuba for decades. Mr. Myers is serving a life sentence. His wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, who was also charged in the case, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison.