I have asked Judge William H. Webster, and he has graciously agreed, to examine thoroughly the internal security functions and procedures of the FBI and recommend improvements. In about 1985, after they had moved back to Washington and Mr. Hanssen was working at F.B.I. He lobbied his Russian masters to buy him a newer PalmPilot, with wireless Internet capabilities, which would allow the rapid transmission of encrypted messages. One day, she said, she found her husband scurrying to cover up some papers in the basement of their home in Scarsdale, N.Y. Minutes later, ONeill extracted it from the mans bag, along with a floppy disc and a flash drive, running everything downstairs for a tech team to copy. He wanted to interview Hanssen for the book but was refused. As a devout Catholic, Bonnie Hanssen feels that he needs time [in prison] to pray for forgiveness and be redeemed in some way, the wifes attorney, Janine Brookner, said in an interview. ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Apologizing before a U.S. federal judge, former FBI agent Robert Hanssen was sentenced Friday to . Source: Netflix Article continues below advertisement He wrote to them anonymously. Joining the FBI in the height of the Cold War, Robert Hanssen dreamed of the exciting life of a spy. Read more Print length 352 pages Should I get him to confess?. ONeill quickly replaced the items and ran out of the office. Now 74, he is serving time at ADX Florence, the federal supermax prison in Colorado. In the early 1980s, Hanssen was transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. To his colleagues in the bureau he seemed to be a model agent. He pled. On January 12, 1976, Robert Philip Hanssen swore an oath to enforce the law and protect the nation as a newly minted FBI special agent. Did you see it?. One might propose that I am either insanely brave or quite insane. According to . She supports the plea agreement and agrees that the sentence of life in prison without parole, rather than the death penalty, is appropriate in these circumstances.. ONeill would have no problem achieving that but he did have a major concern. But in her polygraph test, Mrs. Hanssen denied finding any large and unexplained amounts of money in her home, and the polygraph showed that she was not being deceptive, her lawyer said. "I have opened the door for calumny against my totally innocent wife and children. His job was to help assemble a database of foreign officials posted in New York who, while posing as diplomats, were actually intelligence officers spying on the United States. (2020, August 28). We believe it was exceptionally grave. Instead, the 57-year-old defendant will be sentenced to life in prison without parole if he honors his pledge to tell the government all the secrets behind his two-decade career as a Russian spy. Mrs. Hanssen said she demanded that he repay the $30,000. Darla, who had a masters degree in Education, would earn her own income by teaching learning disabled kids. On 18 February 2001, Robert Hanssen was arrested and charged with committing espionage on behalf of the intelligence services of the former Soviet Union and its successors. But something went wrong and when the two men showed up in the parking garage, the FBI car wasnt there. A feature film called "Breach" was released in 2007. But while agents moved and searched Hanssens car, he unexpectedly cut the meeting short, stalking out and leaving ONeill no time to notify Alleman. She said her husband told her he had received about $30,000 from the Soviets -- more than has previously been disclosed -- but he had spent much of it. . He betrayed his best friend, offering him up to the KGB. The next day he ordered ONeill to drive him to a meeting. At one point Hanssen spoke to a Russian agent over a pay phone, but they generally relied on placing signals in public places. The information he delivered compromised numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations, dozens of classified U.S. government documents, and technical operations of extraordinary importance and value. He reportedly told his supervisors in 1990 that he suspected that Robert Hanssen was a spy after his own wife told him that, during a visit to the Hanssen home, Mrs. Hanssen told her she had become alarmed after discovering $5,000. They bought a modest, three-bedroom home in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., north of New York City. He visited an office of the Russian government's trading company and offered to spy. On Feb. 18, 2001, Hanssen left a package presumably full of classified documents wrapped in trash bags underneath a bridge in Foxstone Park, then placed a piece of tape at a nearby location, indicating the drop had been made. She visits her husband in prison regularly. Hanssen had a reputation for being wildly arrogant and dour. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. The wildest part? Robert Hanssen is a former FBI agent who sold highly classified material to Russian intelligence agents for decades before he was finally arrested in 2001. Authorities said they are convinced that Bonnie Hanssen--unlike the wives of several other notorious U.S. spies who helped their husbands--was not involved in Hanssens spying. The news that he used to literally hunt women and kill them after sexually assaulting them sent shockwaves through the state of Alaska, and on occasion, even beyond its borders. Two were executed. January 30, 2003 / 4:50 PM / CBS. Hanssen, a former counterintelligence supervisor for the FBI, pleaded guilty last week to 15 espionage-related charges and admitted that he had sold the Russians thousands of pages of national security secrets in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. ONeill, 46, left the FBI in May 2001. Judge Webster and anyone he selects to assist him will have complete access and whatever resources are necessary to complete this task. Mrs. Hanssen acknowledged in the interview that in about 1980, she discovered that her husband was having unauthorized dealings with the Russians, but said she never knew the extent of his actions. The parents of six children, Bob and Bonnie "were the picture of a perfect family. The investigation that led to these charges is the direct result of the longstanding FBI/CIA efforts, ongoing since the Aldrich Ames case, to identify additional foreign penetrations of the United States Intelligence Community. Classic animal aggression, ONeill writes. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. The Department of Justice described his espionage as one of the worst in United States History. A self-taught computer expert, Hansen often encrypted his stolen files on wafer-thin disks. Robert Hanssen (left), a 25-year career FBI man, pleaded guilty to, among other charges, 13 counts of espionage for Russia. She said she had none, and the polygraph showed no indication of deception, Ms. Brookner said. By Sherri Day. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose Americas First Cyber Spy, My boss records all the conversations in our office, China's secret police are actively hunting people on US soil, Cuomo mocks Biden over China spy balloon debacle, Biden, DOJ scrapping FBI China initiative led to more spying: security experts. By ABC News. Hanssen took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same, but he decided to violate that oath. They had two children together and were respected members of the community. Follow. He used encrypted communications, dead drops, and other clandestine methods to provide information to the KGB and its successor agency, the SVR. McNamara, Robert. Christopher Burgess / Feb 18, 2021. Children: Lisa, Greg, Mark, John "Jack," Sue and Jane. Robert Philip Hanssen, a 27 year veteran of the FBI, was a double agent. Hanssen subsequently was assigned to a variety of national security posts that legitimately provided him access to classified information relating to the former Soviet Union and Russia. As an agency, we lived up to our responsibility, regardless of how painful it might be. The Robert Hanssen Story" was released in 2002. I raised my chin and met his eyes, puffed out my chest and stood with my feet shoulder-width apart. The tension would not lessen over the next few days, with Hanssen telling ONeill he was a worthless clerk.. The bureau had not asked her to take a polygraph test after her husband's arrest in February 2001. The FBI entrusted him with some of the most sensitive secrets of the United States Government and instead of being humbled by this honor, Hanssen has allegedly abused and betrayed that trust. four in a bed contestant dies. At the time, he was assigned to counterintelligence in the F.B.I. The full extent of the damage done is yet unknown because no accurate damage assessment could be conducted without jeopardizing the investigation. For more information:- Press Release - Veteran FBI Agent Arrested and Charged with Espionage- Affidavit- Statement ofFBI Director Louis J. Freeh on the Arrestof FBI Special Agent Robert Philip Hanssen (see below), Statement of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh On the Arrestof FBI Special Agent Robert Philip Hanssen, For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 20, 2001Washington D.C.FBI National Press Office. The data-some 6000 pages of highly classified documents-revealed . I scooped the devices into my arms and sprinted for the stairway, writes ONeill, who refers to this as his one true James Bond moment. One reason for her frustration may be that some government officials were apparently not convinced of her story. Upon becoming a special agent on January 12, 1976, Hanssen was transferred to the FBI's Gary, Indiana, field office. In hindsight, serial killers often have traits in common and show signs of their adult inclinations as children. Before getting caught in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, he sold thousands of pages of sensitive material to the Soviet Union and ruined massive U.S. intelligence plans. Moron! Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Please be aware how deeply Mrs. Hanssen regrets the damage that her husband, Robert Hanssen, has caused to our country and to their family, the statement said. Hanssen was serving as a detailee to the Office of Foreign Missions at the Department of State at the time suspicions around him arose. Press Release - Veteran FBI Agent Arrested and Charged with Espionage, FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. He later wrote to his KGB handler, speaking about the severity with which U.S. laws punishes his alleged actions, and acknowledging I know far better than most what minefields are laid and the risks.. Hanssen, 56, was an FBI agent for 25 . At least two movies have been made about Hanssen. He was also tasked with observing and learning as much as he could about Hanssens information technology setup in his office and with keeping an eye out on who Hanssen was meeting and talking with. She is also challenging some of her husbands credit card bills. Investigators learned that Hanssen was set to make a dead drop on February 18, 2001. 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