Ex-intelligence officer in Miami says ‘most consequential’ espionage case in U.S. history ‘isn’t over’

MIAMI – A retired U.S. intelligence officer stated on Sunday all over This Week In South Florida that the “most consequential” espionage case in the history of the United States used to be nonetheless unfolding.

Emilio T. Gonzalez, additionally a retired colonel in the U.S. Army, stated he knew Victor Manuel Rocha, who used to be at Federal Detention Center Miami on Sunday serving time in jail for secretly acting as a Cuban intelligence agent.

Gonzalez, a Cuban American who used to be a key marketing consultant to former President George W. Bush, stated Rocha, a Colombian-American former U.S. diplomat, used to be spying for Cuba for ideological causes.

“The Cuban government is a voracious collector and seller of intelligence, so we don’t know whether any of the things he gave them caused harm until we do a damage assessment,” Gonzalez informed TWISF Anchor Glenna Milberg including that there used to be an ongoing federal “damage assessment.”

On Friday, on the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami, U.S. District Court Judge Beth Bloom introduced he had made up our minds that Rocha, 73, didn’t need to pay restitution to any individual else after paying a advantageous. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan D. Stratton and John C. Shipley argued that the U.S. executive used to be the one sufferer of Rocha’s crimes so “there are no other victims entitled to restitution.”

“The federal government says, ‘The only person that was harmed was the federal government therefore nobody else is entitled to restitution.’ Then they go back and say, ‘And oh! By the way, we fined him $500,000.’ Well, he owns $4 million worth of real estate alone, so a $500,000 fine is nothing,” Gonzalez stated about Rocha’s property in the U.S.

Bloom sentenced Rocha to fifteen years in jail in April after he permitted his to blame plea to conspiring to behave as an agent of a overseas executive with out prior notification to the Attorney General, and appearing as an agent of a overseas executive with out prior notification to the Attorney General.

“Ana Belén Montes spied for 17 years and she got 25 years; Manuel Rocha spied for 42 years and he is getting 12,” Gonzalez stated relating to Rocha’s public Federal Bureau of Prisons profile record his unencumber as Sept. 10, 2036.

Gonzales stated that despite the fact that the federal case is over the investigations into what Rocha printed to Cuban officers proceed. As a part of the U.S. injury overview, Gonzalez stated federal brokers will proceed to debrief Rocha for months whilst he serves his jail sentence in downtown Miami.

“This isn’t over. I think that as he is debriefed more and more — and the debriefing could very well last for months — I think there are other shoes to drop,” Gonzalez stated. “I think you may see other news articles of people being picked up … when you are debriefing somebody, he didn’t spend 40 years by himself in a closet somewhere. He actually had to talk to people. He visited people. He went to places. There may be businesses involved.”

Rocha used to be born on Oct. 23, 1950, in Bogotá, Colombia, and grew up in New York City. His U.S. State Department biography says he graduated cum laude from Yale in 1973 and his graduate levels from Harvard in 1976 and Georgetown in 1978 when he was a U.S. Citizen. Gonzalez tried to give an explanation for Rocha’s Marxist-Leninist affect.

“Napoleon once said, ‘If you want to judge the measure of a man, know what the world was like when that person was 20.’ When Manuel Rocha was 20, Latin America was in convulsion. We had guerrilla wars. We had leftist governments. He was recruited for ideological reasons,” Gonzalez stated.

The U.S. State Department employed him in 1981. Here is Rocha’s profession as described by federal prosecutors:

Rocha signed a safety settlement on Nov. 25, 1981; signed a categorised information nondisclosure settlement on Jan. 12, 1989; later handed an FBI background investigation that integrated an interview on May 8, 1994; and finished nationwide safety evaluate that integrated a questionnaire that he finished on Aug. 25, 1999.

Rocha served as a political officer on the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic from December 1982 to January 1985. He used to be a political-military affairs officer on the U.S. Embassy in Honduras from February 1987 to February 1989. He served as the primary secretary on the U.S. Embassy in Mexico from February 1989 to November 1991.

Rocha returned to the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic because the deputy leader of project from November 1991 to July 1994. He served because the director of Inter-American Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council from July 1994 to July 1995 and because the deputy important officer on the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, Cuba.

Rocha left Havana for Buenos Aires, Argentina, to function deputy leader of project on the U.S. Embassy from July 1997 to November 1999. He used to be U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia in La Paz from November 1999 to August 2002. He used to be an marketing consultant to the commander of the U.S. Southern Command from 2006 to 2012.

Félix Rodríguez, a CIA operative who participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion and the execution of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, told The Associated Press {that a} defected Cuban Army lieutenant colonel informed him in 2006 that Rocha used to be spying for Cuba however no person believed him. Later, the FBI investigated Rocha.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, an FBI secret agent met with Rocha in 2022 and closing 12 months. A gathering level used to be the First Miami Presbyterian Church in Miami’s Brickell community. The agent recorded Rocha pronouncing that the U.S. used to be “the enemy,” Cuban intelligence officials have been his “comrades” and described his paintings for the Cuban executive as “more than a grand slam.”

Rocha additionally informed the FBI secret agent that he had “created a legend of a right-wing person.” He held private-sector jobs and used to be running because the senior world industry marketing consultant for LLYC USA. Two U.S. Diplomatic Security Service brokers interviewed Rocha on Dec. 1 and he used to be arrested.

“There is just something about the way this case was handled that brings up more questions than there are answers to,” Gonzalez stated.

Cuban-American activists blamed Rocha for The Brothers To The Rescue shootdown. Rosa Maria Payá blames Rocha for the loss of life of her father Oswaldo Payá, a democracy activist in Cuba who died with Harold Cepero all over what Cuban government described as a automobile crash on July 22, 2012, close to Bayamo. Last 12 months, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “identified sufficient serious evidence to conclude that State agents had been involved in the deaths.”

Francisco Chaviano Gonzalez, a human rights activist in Cuba who used to be in jail for over 13 years, additionally blames Rocha. A Cuban army court docket attempted and sentenced the activist in 1995 to fifteen years in jail accusing him of unveiling state safety secrets and techniques. In 2007, the IACHR reported he had “suffered injuries to his face and head as a result of beatings meted out by prison guards.”