Robert Hanssen, F.B.I. Agent Exposed as Spy for Moscow, Dies at 79
Robert Hanssen, a former F.B.I. agent who was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for spying for Moscow during and after the Cold War in one of the most damaging espionage cases in American history, was found dead in his cell in a federal prison in Colorado on Monday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. He was 79.
The bureau said in a statement that Mr. Hanssen was found unresponsive at the United States Penitentiary Florence in Colorado just before 7 a.m. He was pronounced dead after lifesaving efforts by emergency medical workers.
The statement did not give a cause for Mr. Hanssen’s death.
Mr. Hanssen had been in custody at the Florence lockup, maximum security facility, since July 17, 2002, after he was sentenced to life in prison without parole in May of that year after pleading guilty to 15 counts of espionage.
Mr. Hanssen joined the F.B.I. in 1976 as a special agent and went on to hold several counterintelligence positions that gave him access to classified information. He began spying for the Soviet Union three years after joining the bureau, when he was assigned to a counterintelligence unit in New York, by walking into the New York offices of Amtorg, a Soviet trade organization that was known to be a front for the Soviet military intelligence agency.
Source: The New York Times
