NEW YORK — An FBI agent arrested in 1996 for spying for Moscow told investigators he knew of suspicious activity by fellow agent Robert Hanssen, who is charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.
The agent, Earl Pitts, said he told the FBI in an interrogation in June 1997 that he suspected Hanssen of “suspicious activity.” Hanssen had tried in the early 1990s to gain unauthorized secret information in a computer, Pitts told The New York Times in a prison interview last week.
Pitts pleaded guilty to espionage charges and is serving a 27-year sentence at a federal prison in Kentucky.
Hanssen, who worked for the FBI for 25 years, was indicted three months ago on 21 espionage counts. The indictment accused Hanssen of giving U.S. secrets, including information about satellites and early warning systems, to the Soviet Union and later to Russia in return for $1.4 million.
The disclosure that Pitts had raised suspicions about Hanssen provides the first evidence that the FBI had received a counterintelligence warning specifically raising Hanssen’s name. Since Hanssen’s arrest, the bureau has been accused of not doing enough to prevent what government prosecutors have called a serious security breach.
In the interview, Pitts said he did not know Hanssen may have been spying for Russia. But he said the computer incident suggested that Hanssen was “trying to collect information covertly.”
FBI spokesman John Collingwood confirmed that Pitts named Hanssen in an interrogation in June 1997, but said he didn’t identify anyone as a spy.
“Pitts did describe as `unusual’ a computer hacking incident involving Hanssen,” Collingwood said. “When asked if he was aware of anything or anyone beyond this hacking incident already known to the FBI, Pitts said `no.’ ”
After the debriefing, the matter was immediately referred to FBI headquarters, but officials took no further action because they were aware of the computer incident.
Plato Cacheris, Hanssen’s lawyer, could not be reached for comment last Friday.
If found guilty, Hanssen could be sentenced to death. He is expected to be arraigned Thursday in federal court in Alexandria, Va.
