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Former US FBI Agent Pleads Guilty to Spying for Moscow
Former US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Robert Hanssen pleaded guilty Friday to charges of spying for Moscow as part of a plea agreement with the government to avoid the death penalty.
Hanssen appeared in court in Alexandria, Virginia, to plead guilty to 15 counts of espionage and one count of conspiracy to commit espionage.
Hanssen, 57, who had been an FBI agent for 25 years, has been charged with selling secrets to Moscow over 15 years for 1.4 million U.S. dollars in money and diamonds.
However, Hanssen's lawyer, Plato Cacheris, told the judge that his client had spied intermittently since 1979 with several breaks, including one from 1992 to 1999.
Hanssen, whose job at the FBI was supposed to have been catching Russian spies, was arrested in February after allegedly dropping off a bundle of classified material at a park near his home in suburban Virginia to be picked up by his Russian handlers.
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