1999 - Resumes spying, this time for the Russian Intelligence agency. Still, he was not identified as a spy. As Hanssen walked back to his car, the arrest team rushed up and took him into custody. [5] His mother was Edna Margret Petersen. Finding nothing, Hanssen decided to resume his spy career after eight years without contact with the Russians. Hanssen ensured that he did not reveal himself with his study, but in addition, he gave the entire studyincluding the list of all Soviets who had contacted the FBI about FBI molesto the KGB in 1988. The priest told Hanssen to stop his illegal activities and donate the money he had gotten from the Russians to charity. Hanssen is mentioned in chapter 5 of Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code as the most noted Opus Dei member to non-members. He met his second wife, Darla, shortly after his parole. In return, he received large sums of money and other remuneration. "Butcher, Baker" was adapted into the 2013 film "The Frozen Ground," starring Nicholas Cage, John Cusack, and Vanessa Hudgens (per IMDb). Darla earned a living for the household as well, teaching children with disabilities. The ensuing investigation confirmed this suspicion. The fact that the KGB became aware of the probe triggered the FBI to look for the leak. [65], A priest at Oakcrest said Hanssen had regularly attended a 6:30a.m. daily Mass for over a decade. Friends of Hanssen later came forward and told journalists that Hanssen had exhibited eccentric behavior, which included an obsession with pornography. Hanssen was arrested on February 18, 2001, at Foxstone Park,[5] near his home in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Vienna, Virginia, after leaving a package of classified materials at a dead drop site. Instead, he ultimately became the most damaging spy in Bureau history. 1991 - Breaks off relations with the KGB. Biography of Vladimir Putin: From KGB Agent to Russian President, Biography of Mata Hari, Infamous World War I Spy, Haym Salomon, Spy and Financier of the American Revolution, Biography of Virginia Hall, WWII's Most Wanted Spy, Biography of Fred Hampton, Black Panther Party Leader, Biography of Robert Kennedy, US Attorney General, Presidential Candidate, John Dillinger's Life as Public Enemy Number 1, Biography of Nikita Khrushchev, Cold War Era Soviet Leader. 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. Hanssen reportedly lavished cash and gifts on a Washington stripper whom he befriended. [41] The idea that an FBI agent was the second mole was not considered early enough. Sullivan noted that Hanssen spent a lot of time trolling ACS for information. He was sentenced to life in prison. The FBI believed his story, and Hanssen was merely given a warning. The following year he was shifted to counter-intelligence division where he was delegated the job of organising data of Soviet intelligence. In 1978, he and his growing family of three children (and eventually six) relocated to New York City when the FBI transferred him to its field office there. NSD chief Johnnie Sullivan ordered the computer impounded after it seemed to have been tampered with. Today, Mrs. Hanssen is teaching at a Catholic school in suburban Virginia and is living in the house she shared with her husband and their six children. That could leave Bonnie Hanssen, who works part time at the Catholic girls' school that her youngest child attends, in dire straits. Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much ", "Eric O'Neill and Billy Ray Discuss 'Breach', "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees: Uproar Over CIA Operative; Iraq Weapons Hunt: Congress to be Briefed", "FBI Spy Robert Hanssen Gets Life Sentence", "Faculty and Staff Directory for Oakcrest School for Girls", Ex-stripper describes her time with accused spy, "MUGSHOTS: ROBERT HANSSEN HANSSEN AND THE KGB", "Smithsonian Channel: It's Brighter Here", FBI application for arrest warrant for Hanssen, "The Movie Breach and Hollywood's Take on Espionage; Peter interviews Eric O'Neill, the FBI investigator who went undercover as Robert Hanssen's clerk during the final months before Hanssen was arrested for espionage", "This FBI Agent Sold Secrets to the KGB for Years", "Curator's Corner: Robert Hanssen - An Inside View with Eric O'Neill", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Hanssen&oldid=1134276656, Ramon Garcia, Jim Baker, G. Robertson, Graysuit, "B", This page was last edited on 17 January 2023, at 21:42. To the residents of the quiet suburb of Vienna, Virginia, Robert Hanssen was the perfect neighbor. [35] Three years later, convicted FBI mole Earl Edwin Pitts told the FBI that he suspected Hanssen due to the Mislock incident. An FBI arrest team moved into position at Foxstone Park, a location where Hanssen had been spotted before by FBI surveillance. Further, the complaint alleges that Hanssen, using his training and experience to protect himself from discovery by the FBI, never met face-to-face with his Russian handlers, never revealed to them his true identity or where he worked, constantly checked FBI records for signs he and the drop sites he was using were being investigated, refused any foreign travel to meet with the Russians, and even declined to accept any trade craft. Hanssen never displayed outward signs that he was receiving large amounts of unexplained cash. Robert Phillip Hanssen was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 18, 1944. When FBI agents observed this incriminating act, they rushed in to arrest Hanssen. Yet some investigators believed anger about how his father treated him as a child triggered a need to rebel against authority. 1981 - Hanssens wife catches him with classified documents and convinces him to stop spying. Hansen even followed in his fathers footsteps and opened up his own bakery. 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. But Thursday, Bonnie Hanssen issued a statement through her attorney revealing the torment that the case has caused. Bonnie Hanssens first public statements on the case reveal both her anxiety over her husbands actions and her sense of relief over the fact that she and her six children will retain an estimated $39,000 a year from his government pension. Hansen opened a bakery and learned how to fly the small plane that he purchased. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. He began providing the Soviets with highly valuable material. [17][18], In 1981, Hanssen was transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and he relocated to the suburb of Vienna, Virginia. Though both Hansen and his wife earned respectable incomes, it would be revealed that it was Darla who was supporting the household. Eric Michael O'Neill is an American former FBI counter-terrorism and counterintelligence operative. 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. May 9, 2002 4:00am. He did well in his elective, Russian. This brief union did not produce any children. Their actions represent counterintelligence at its very best and under the most difficult and sensitive of circumstances. He was charged with selling U.S. intelligence documents to the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia for more than $1.4 million in cash and diamonds over 22 years. [7][8] On May 10, 2002, Hanssen was sentenced to 15 consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He often steered conversations to talk of religion and his very conservative values, which were aligned with the very conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. After a stint of three years he was shifted to the Soviet Analytical Unit that delved in probing, recognising and catching Soviet agents in the US. Instead, he ultimately became the most damaging spy in. While the risk that an employee of the United States Government will betray his country can never be eliminated, there must be more that the FBI can do to protect itself from such an occurrence. In 1967, the couple moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and had two children. Undated file photo released by the FBI February 20, 2001 shows a package recovered at the 'Lewis' drop site containing $50,000 cash allegedly left by Russians for FBI Agent Robert Philip Hanssen. A proficient hunter and tracker since childhood, Hansen chased down his victims in the Alaskan wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and a knife. After graduating from a public high school, Hanssen attended Knox College in Illinois, studying chemistry and Russian. [4] He was spying at the same time as Aldrich Ames in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They created a list of all agents known to have access to cases that were compromised. After Ames's arrest in 1994, some of these intelligence breaches remained unsolved. He placed a white piece of tape on a park sign, which was a signal to his Russian contacts that there was information at the dead drop site. He was finally arrested in early 2001 from Foxstone Park for trading classified information of the US to the Soviet Union and later to the Russian Federation. [27][28] When the Soviets began construction on a new embassy during 1977, the FBI dug a tunnel beneath their decoding room. Later, he hid a video camera in the bedroom connected via a closed-circuit television line so that Hoschouer could observe the Hanssens from his guest bedroom. His case is considered one of America's greatest intelligence failures, as Hanssen operated as a mole within the bureau's counterintelligence division, the highly sensitive part of the FBI tasked with tracking foreign spies. Mark Wauck, an FBI employee and brother-in-law of Hanssen, prompted his superior in 1990 to investigate Hanssen after a heap of cash was found in Hanssens house, but no action was taken. With two children already out of school, the pension money will help Bonnie Hanssen support two children who are in college and two more still in high school, Brookner said. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/robert-hanssen-6997.php. The money Hansen generated from his bakery went elsewhere. He was, after all, a trained counterintelligence specialist. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. He began providing the Soviets with highly valuable material. His most important leak was the betrayal of Dmitri Polyakov, a CIA informant who passed enormous amounts of information to U.S. intelligence while rising to the rank of general in the Soviet Army. Hanssen's story is the subject of the 2021 documentary A Spy in the FBI. In this assignment, however, Hanssen did continue to have access to sensitive FBI information as he remained assigned to the FBIs National Security Division and routinely dealt with sensitive and classified matters. Hanssen then began to videotape his sexual encounters secretly and shared the videotapes with Hoschouer. The complaint alleges that he received over $600,000. The FBI believes that the Russians never knew the name of their source. The FBI trusted him with some of the most sensitive secrets of the U.S. government, and instead of upholding that trust, he abused and betrayed it. In January 2001, Hanssen moved into a small office in FBI Headquarters secretly outfitted with surveillance cameras and microphones. I am shamed by it," Hanssen told U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton. The full extent of the damage done is yet unknown because no accurate damage assessment could be conducted without jeopardizing the investigation. The information he is alleged to have provided compromised numerous human sources, technical operations, counterintelligence techniques, sources and methods, and investigations, including the Felix Bloch investigation. In what is now considered the largest intelligence breach in FBI history, Robert Hanssen's scandal made him millions in diamonds and cash, but cost the FBI $7 million and the lives of three informants. After his release 20 months later, Hansen worked at putting his life back in order. Robert Christian Boes Hansen was born in Estherville, Iowa, at Coleman Hospital on February 15, 1939, the elder of two children to an American mother and a Danish father. News reports at the time of his sentencing said American intelligence agencies were not entirely satisfied with the extent of his cooperation and believed he was holding back information. He then enrolled at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to study dentistry but after three years shifted to business studies. Brian Blomquist. However, even though Hansen would go to church with his wife, nothing really changed. May 31, 2001 - Pleads not guilty to all charges. Because of his sexual deviancy and espionage conviction, the organization's reputation was badly hurt. [70] Hanssen gave her money, jewels, and a used Mercedes-Benz but ended contact with her before his arrest when she began abusing drugs and doing sex work. Before Hanssen left the position, Sullivan went to learn his new role at the Department of State. [72], Hanssen was the subject of a 2002 made-for-television movie, Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story, with the teleplay by Norman Mailer and starring William Hurt as Hanssen. 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