Most damaging’ Soviet spy:Robert Hanssen is dead

 In the most notorious spying cases in American history A former FBI agent convicted.

Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who was one of the most damaging spies in American history, was found dead in his prison cell Monday morning, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

Hanssen, was arrested in 2001 and admite guilty to selling highly classified material to the Soviet Union and later Russia. He was serving a life sentence at the federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. Robert Hanssen took more than $1.4 million in cash and diamonds to trade secrets with Moscow

Bureau of Prisons representative Kristie Breshears said in a statement.  Spokeswoman Hanssen was found unresponsive  and staff immediately initiated life-saving measures, Staff requested emergency medical services and life-saving efforts continued, The inmate was subsequently pronounced dead by outside emergency medical personnel." Hanssen appears to have died of natural causes, according to two sources briefed on the matter.

Hanssen was arrested after making a dead drop in a Virginia park in 2001 after the FBI had been secretly monitoring him for months. His identity was discovered after a Russian intelligence officer handed over a file containing a trash bag with Hanssen's fingerprints and a tape recording of his voice.

In letters to the KGB, Hanssen expressed concern that he might one day be caught, and he often checked FBI computers for any sign that it was investigating him.

O'Neill, who wrote a book about the investigation to nab Hanssen said "He truly didn't respect Russia very much, at least not in his conversations with me," O'Neill said. "But he was able to use them very effectively to solve his other problems. One that he was angry at the FBI for not placing him in the position of authority and gravitas and respect that he believed he deserved. And two, he needed money. He was financially having problems and he needed money and you solve both those problems by becoming a spy."

"At some point, spying and being the top spy for the Soviet Union, while within the FBI, became the thing that made him belong to something much bigger than himself," he added. "I think that at some point, even more than the money that became what was so important to him."

Hanssen's life in prison was "absolutely horrible," O'Neill said. He spent 23 hours a day alone in a tiny cell.

He told the FBI that he was inspired as a teenager by Kim Philby, the British spy turned Russian agent.

Hanssen had lived a double life in many ways - outwardly an anti-Communist and devout Catholic father of six, but a frequenter of strip clubs who secretly filmed pornographic videos of his wife.

.Sarah H

.Sarah H

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