That effort is complemented by substantial FBI proactive investigation of foreign service intelligence officers here and by the critical work done by the CIA. 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. Hanssen then began to videotape his sexual encounters secretly and shared the videotapes with Hoschouer. Hansen opened a bakery and learned how to fly the small plane that he purchased. Robert Hanssen moments after being arrested. After his release 20 months later, Hansen worked at putting his life back in order. Since becoming Director over seven years ago, I have administered the FBI oath to each graduating class of Special Agents at the FBI Academy. The agents working for him reported this breach to a supervisor, but no action was taken. A proficient hunter and tracker since childhood, Hansen chased down his victims in the Alaskan wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and a knife. Robert was born in 1939 in Iowa to Danish immigrants Christian and Edna Hansen. All his six children went to schools linked with Opus Dei. [9] He is of Norwegian descent. 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. In early February 2001, he asked his friend at a computer technology company for a job. Judge Webster and anyone he selects to assist him will have complete access and whatever resources are necessary to complete this task. "[3] Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. [23] Martynov and Motorin were recalled to Moscow, where they were arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of espionage against the Soviet government. During his second round of dealing with Russian agents, Hanssen was much more cautious. 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. For two children, that was devastating. He was tasked with studying all known and rumored penetrations of the FBI to find the man who had betrayed Martynov and Motorin; this meant, in effect, that he was charged with searching for himself. 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. He also believed he heard noises on his car radio that indicated it was bugged, although the FBI was later unable to reproduce the noises Hanssen claimed to have heard. [20] In 1985, Hanssen was again transferred to the FBI's field office in New York, where he continued to work in counterintelligence against the Soviets. Bonnie had previously told her brother that Hanssen once talked about retiring in Poland, then part of the Eastern Bloc. He managed to avoid a death penalty by negotiating a plea deal where he agreed to cooperate with government agents. Hanssen sold thousands of classified documents to the KGB that detailed U.S. strategies in the event of nuclear war, developments in military weapons technologies, and aspects of the U.S. counterintelligence program. This included all the FBI activities related to wiretapping and electronic surveillance, which were Hanssen's responsibility. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. In school, he was bullied for his acne, girls would not talk to him, and he also developed a stutter. He is a public speaker and security He wrote to them anonymously. As a result of these assignments within the FBI, Hanssen gained access to some of the most sensitive and highly classified information in the United States Government. This brief union did not produce any children. May 31, 2001 - Pleads not guilty to all charges. Hanssen also revealed a multimillion-dollar eavesdropping tunnel built by the FBI under the Soviet Embassy. The ensuing investigation confirmed this suspicion. Because of his sexual deviancy and espionage conviction, the organization's reputation was badly hurt. The first marriage lasted only for six months; his wife divorced him while he was serving a 3-year sentence for arson in Iowa. Hanssen allegedly began spying for the Soviets in 1985 when, in his first letter to the KGB, he volunteered information that compromised several sensitive techniques. [75], The American Court TV (now TruTV) television series Mugshots released an episode on the Robert Hanssen case titled "Robert Hanssen Hanssen and the KGB".[76]. His bride left him after six months when Hansen was put in prison for setting fire to the local school district's bus barns. Instead, he ultimately became the most damaging spy in. As alleged in the complaint, computer forensic analysis, substantial covert surveillance, court authorized searches and other sensitive techniques revealed that Hanssen has routinely accessed FBI records and clandestinely provided those records and other classified information to Russian intelligence officers. McNamara, Robert. The FBI also obtains the complete original KGB dossier on Hanssen. "I apologize for my behavior. He was paid handsomely by the Soviets. Brian Blomquist. January 12, 1976 - Joins the FBI as a special agent. 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. Robert Hanssen's business cards, chalk and thumb tacks, which he used to communicate with his Russian contacts, according to the FBI. O'Neill ascertained that Hanssen was using a Palm III PDA to store his information. Robert Hansen. Yet some investigators believed anger about how his father treated him as a child triggered a need to rebel against authority. Hansen would frequent the strip clubs in the area. After leaving a friend at an airport on February 18, 2001, Hanssen drove to Virginia's Foxstone Park. Hanssen's jailers allowed him to watch this movie, but he was so angered by it that he turned it off. 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 later joined the Catholic organization Opus Dei[13] with like-minded individuals. Hanssen was serving as a detailee to the Office of Foreign Missions at the Department of State at the time suspicions around him arose. Our hearts go out to them. children: Greg Hanssen, Jane Hanssen, John Hanssen, Lisa Hanssen, Mark Hanssen, Sue Hanssen, education: Kellogg School Of Management, Knox College (Illinois), See the events in life of Robert Hanssen in Chronological Order, (Former FBI Double Agent Who Spied for Russian Intelligence Services Against the United States from 1979 to 2001), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Hanssen.jpg, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert-Philip-Hanssen.jpg. His Russian contacts and Hanssen were highly trained in espionage techniques and were able to work together without ever meeting. in Chemistry, 1966; Attended Northwestern University Dental School, 1966-1968; Northwestern University, M.B.A. in Accounting and Information Systems, 1971. [21] In the letter, he gave the names of three KGB agents secretly working for the FBI: Boris Yuzhin, Valery Martynov, and Sergei Motorin. They have committed their lives to public service and to upholding the high standards of the FBI. For many years, the CIA and FBI have been aggressively engaged in a sustained analytical effort to identify foreign penetrations of the Intelligence Community. I take solace and satisfaction, however, that the FBI succeeded in this investigation. For a while he was in contact with Priscilla Sue Galey, a stripper in Washington, who received cash, jewelry and other benefits from Hanssen. [30], In 1990, Hanssen's brother-in-law, Mark Wauck, who was also an FBI employee, recommended to the FBI that Hanssen be investigated for espionage because his sister, Hanssen's wife, told him that her sister, Jeanne Beglis, had found a pile of cash on a dresser in the Hanssens' house. His wife was a teacher of theology at Oakcrest. The criminal conduct alleged represents the most traitorous actions imaginable against a country governed by the Rule of Law. Their goal was to catch Hanssen red handed in espionage. Though both Hansen and his wife earned respectable incomes, it would . The couple married in 1968, and Hanssen converted from Lutheranism to his wife's Catholicism. The couple, however, did not have a great relationship. They never lived the high life; they never even went out to dinner, she said. He established contact with the SVR (the successor to the Soviet-era KGB) during the autumn of 1999. 2023 Cable News Network. In court proceedings the government stated that Hanssen had been paid more than $1.4 million during his spying career, most of which he never actually received, as it was held for him in a Russian bank. In 1985 he approached the Soviets again and offered valuable secrets. FBI agents remove evidence from Robert Hanssen's home in Vienna, Virginia on February 20, 2001. . He married Bernadette Wauck in 1968 and, influenced by his devout Catholic wife, he converted to Catholicism. [58] Going by the alias "Ramon" or "Ramon Garcia",[59] Hanssen exchanged intelligence and payments through an old-fashioned dead drop system in which he and his KGB handlers left packages in public, unobtrusive places. In 1979 he contacted the Soviet military intelligence, GRU, to offer his espionage. These reports went nowhere, however (via the New York Daily News). [64] His three daughters attended Oakcrest School for Girls in Vienna, Virginia, an independent Roman Catholic school. After working in the FBI division that developed secret listening devices, Hanssen was again placed in a position to track Russian agents operating in the United States. He was made the chief of National Security Threat List Unit of FBI in Washington, D.C. in 1992. 2000 - The FBI identifies Hanssen from a fingerprint and from a tape recording supplied by a disgruntled Russian intelligence operative. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. children: Greg Hanssen, Jane Hanssen, John Hanssen, Lisa Hanssen, Mark Hanssen, Sue Hanssen Born Country: United States Spies American Men City: Chicago, Illinois Notable Alumni: Knox College (Illinois) U.S. State: Illinois More Facts Recommended Lists: American People Kellogg School Of Management Male Spies American Spies Aries Men He also designated a code to be used when dates were exchanged. 1981 - Is assigned to the Intelligence Division at FBI headquarters in DC. 2. His father, an officer of the Chicago police, often scorned and abused him emotionally. On February 18, 2001, Hanssen was arrested and charged with committing espionage on behalf of Russia and the former Soviet Union. In November 1998, they had a man with a foreign accent come to Kelley's door, warn him that the FBI knew he was a spy, and tell him to show up at a Metro station the next day to escape. It belongs to his wife . He then followed his usual routine, taking a package consisting of a sealed garbage bag of classified material and taping it to the bottom side of a wooden footbridge over a creek. He began providing the Soviets with highly valuable material. 1979 - Begins spying for the Soviet Union. After being released, he met his second wife, Darla Henrichsen, and the pair got married in 1963. Press Release - Veteran FBI Agent Arrested and Charged with Espionage, FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. [4][10] He graduated from William Howard Taft High School in 1962 and then attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1966. in Chemistry, 1966; Attended Northwestern University Dental School, 1966-1968;. The FBI's codename for the suspected spy was "Graysuit". A reader replied to the blog, claiming to have been roommates with Hansen's daughter in the early 1990s, but this has yet to be substantiated. Though the government alleges that Robert Hanssen, 56,. Hanssen pled guilty to 15 counts of espionage on July 6, 2001. Once when Bonnie caught his espionage, he made a confession to an Opus Dei priest, donated cash to Catholic charity and gave his word of never spying again. But even as her life regains some sense of normalcy, Bonnie Hanssen struggles to understand the havoc that the last few months have wrought, Brookner said. She left her children, Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric well taken care of, but she didn't leave . Hanssen is a Special Agent of the FBI with a long career in counterintelligence. Instead, he ultimately became the most damaging spy in Bureau history. Christian owned a bakery and would make his son work for long hours as a kid. Hansen was convicted of just four of the murders in a deal that spared him . The damage Hanssen did was considerable. "Butcher, Baker" was adapted into the 2013 film "The Frozen Ground," starring Nicholas Cage, John Cusack, and Vanessa Hudgens (per IMDb). He often steered conversations to talk of religion and his very conservative values, which were aligned with the very conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Robert Phillip Hanssen was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 18, 1944. A digital investigation found that an attempted hacking had occurred using a password cracking program installed by Hanssen, which caused a security alert and lockup. He worked as a policeman in Chicago for three years and was placed on an elite unit that investigated corruption. In the face of worldwide publicity about one of the most damaging espionage breaches in U.S. history, Bonnie Hanssen, 54, has maintained a steadfast silence since her husband of nearly 30 years was arrested in February near their home in suburban Washington. 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