Judge calls for restitution in Cuba agent’s case, but then sides with DOJ that U.S. is ‘only victim’

A federal judge found that a former ambassador convicted of being a covert agent for Cuba did not have to pay restitution to anyone because, as prosecutors argued, the “only victim” was the U.S. government.

A federal judge called a hearing for Friday morning to decide whether a former American ambassador convicted of being a covert agent for Cuba should be required to pay any victims of his betrayal against the United States in a national security case that rocked both the U.S. intelligence and exile communities.

But just minutes after the hearing began in Miami federal court, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom found that former career diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha did not have to pay restitution to anyone because, as prosecutors argued, the “only victim” was the U.S. government.

Prosecutors asserted that Rocha, who in April was sentenced to 15 years in prison and paid a $500,000 fine, was not required to pay restitution because no one else had been harmed by his wrongdoing as an unregistered foreign agent for the Cuban government since the early 1980s.

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