Robert Hanssen

Robert Hanssen

Robert Philip Hanssen (born April 18, 1944) is a former American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States for 22 years from 1979 to 2001. As of 2012, he is serving a life sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.

Hanssen was arrested on 18 February 2001 at Foxstone Park near his home in Vienna, Virginia, and was charged with selling American secrets to Russia for more than US$1.4 million in cash and diamonds over a 22-year period. On 6 July 2001, he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of espionage in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He was then sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His activities have been described by the U.S. Department of Justice's Commission for the Review of FBI Security Programs as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history."