For U.S. Cuban claims holders, spy Manuel Rocha's plea deal raises fresh questions

• Cuban spy Manuel Rocha was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday in a plea deal that requires him to cooperate with the U.S. government.
• Carolyn Lamb hopes that process might reveal what Rocha was doing 20 years ago when he visited her in Omaha, Nebraska to offer her pennies on the dollar for her family claim in Cuba.
• There are nearly 6,000 American claims to property and land in Cuba that was seized by Fidel Castro's government after his 1959 coup d'etat.

When Carolyn Lamb saw news of Cuban spy Victor Manuel Rocha's arrest on the news last December, she recognized him immediately. It was the same man who had sat in her Omaha living room 17 years ago, trying to make a deal. 

On Friday, Rocha, 73, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the Cuban government, pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy. On top of his prison sentence, Rocha faces three years of supervised release, a $500,000 fine, and several other conditions.

Rocha's arrest last year stunned the diplomatic community, in part because of his longevity as an agent—more than 40 years, much of it spent working for the US State Department, including a stint as US ambassador to Bolivia and another at the National Security Council.

In exchange for a reduced sentence, Rocha's agreement requires him to cooperate with prosecutors and reveal what clandestine activities he performed for Cuba. 

Carolyn Lamb hopes that process will reveal what Rocha was up to in her living room nearly 20 years. 

Lamb describes how Rocha traveled across the country in 2007, and offered to purchase the paper claims to an 80-acre farm, a 1959 Buick, and thousands of shares in the Cuban Telephone Company that belonged to Lamb's father before they