page_title: Robert Hanssen
section_title: Guilty plea and imprisonment
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Hanssen / Guilty plea and imprisonment
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Hanssen behind bars in ADX Florence
context_page_description: Robert Philip Hanssen is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history." He is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado.
  In 1979, three years after joining the FBI, Hanssen approached the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate to offer his services, launching his first espionage cycle, which lasted until 1981. Hanssen restarted his espionage activities in 1985 and continued until 1991 when he broke off communications during the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing he would be exposed. He restored communications the next year and continued until his arrest. Throughout his spying, Hanssen remained anonymous to the Russians.
  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.
context_section_description: With the representation of Washington lawyer Plato Cacheris, Hanssen negotiated a plea bargain that enabled him to escape the death penalty in exchange for cooperating with authorities. On July 6, 2001, he pleaded guilty to 14 counts of espionage and one of conspiracy to commit espionage in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. On May 10, 2002, he was sentenced to fifteen consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. "I apologize for my behavior. I am shamed by it," Hanssen told U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton. "I have opened the door for calumny against my totally innocent wife and children. I have hurt so many deeply."
  Hanssen is Federal Bureau of Prisons prisoner #48551-083. He is serving his sentence at the ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado, in solitary confinement for twenty-three hours a day.
caption: Hanssen behind bars in ADX Florence
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