Former Diplomat Bloch Now Bus Driver

Feb. 21 -- When FBI Director Louis Freeh announced Robert Hanssen's arrest for alleged espionage, he said the 25-year veteran of the bureau may have had ties to two other accused spies, Aldrich Ames and Felix Bloch.

Ames, a CIA counterintelligence official, has been serving a life sentence without parole since pleading guilty in 1994 to spying for the KGB, and FBI officials believe Hanssen may have been his accomplice.

But Felix Bloch, once the second-highest ranking U.S. diplomat in Vienna, was suspended by the State Department in 1989 after a videotape allegedly caught him passing a suitcase containing secrets to a Soviet agent in Paris. Bloch denied the allegations, and was never charged with any crime. He was ultimately fired on the grounds that he lied to investigators and fell out of the national spotlight.

But where has Bloch been in the 12 years since the accusations first surfaced?

The ex-U.S. diplomat went from Vienna, Austria to Chapel Hill, N.C., where he took a job as a bus driver for the Chapel Hill Transit Service in July 1992. Company officials said he has been there ever since.

The bus routes of the Chapel Hill Transit Service are far removed from video cameras in Paris, as Bloch has driven through towns where the population is only 91 and the cotton fields stretch for acres. Bloch seems to have tried to forget his past, not returning calls to local reporters who remembered his case. Calls from ABCNEWS.com to a phone registered in his name went unreturned.

However, he has had his troubles. He's been arrested for shoplifting three times, most recently last year when police caught him with $16 worth of dessert bars and cheese. Bloch pleaded guilty to misdemeanor and lesser shoplifting charges in those cases.

More Trouble Ahead?

Hanssen's arrest may mean that trouble lies ahead for Bloch. In their affidavit, FBI investigators say they believe Hanssen may have tipped off Bloch about their investigation of his alleged activities.

According to the affidavit, investigators learned from a taped phone conversation in April 1989 that Bloch was an associate of a Soviet spy named Reino Gikman. The FBI then opened an investigation on Bloch, observing subsequent meetings between them in Paris and Brussels.