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He admitted that he had concealed from the FBI the receipt of payments from the Albanian-American Agron Neza and his meetings with foreign officials, including the Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama.
Charles McGonigal, is one of the highest-ranking FBI agents ever convicted of criminal charges. Charles McGonigal's February 16, 2024 sentence will be added to the 50-month prison sentence he received separately in New York last year for conspiring with Russian oligarch Deripaska to be removed from the US sanctions list.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the sentences to be served consecutively. So McGonigal faces a total of 6.6 months when he appears in prison next month for the two offences.
"This is a very serious violation, one that tarnishes the integrity of the FBI, jeopardizes the credibility of all cases it handles, and abuses the public's trust at a time when government institutions are under attack. "The motive could only be greed," said Judge Kollar-Kotelly, while adding McGonigal lost his "moral compass," writes the Washington Post.
" I honestly don't understand why you would just throw away your career at that point for money ," the judge said, noting that he could have achieved a 'good' private income after a brilliant career.
What McGonigal stated at trial
McGonigal was a special agent in the counterintelligence division of the FBI's New York office from 2016 until he retired in September 2018. He admitted to concealing from the FBI the receipt of payments from Albanian-American Agron Neza and meetings of his with foreign officials, including the Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama.
He said he had made him avoid questions about the conflict of interest between his official duties and private plans to build business opportunities after retirement in that country, writes the Washington Post.
'Sold his badge for $225,000'.
In the 90-minute hearing, Assistant US Attorney Elizabeth Aloi said McGonigal's concealment of the payments "was essentially corruption that undermines transparency and confidence in the integrity of this executive branch of government."
She said McGonigal "sold his badge for $225,000" and "betrayed his country" as a man of the law who was "sworn to investigate and prevent crimes against the United States, not commit them."
What did the lawyers say at the trial?
Defense attorneys DuCharme and Meagan Maloney asked the judge to recognize McGonigal's significant service to the FBI in preventing an attack on the New York subway in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, the terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan and the bombings. of the US embassy in East Africa, and other cases that remain classified.
The lawyer disputed the Prosecutor's claim that McGonigal betrayed his country.
DuCharme said McGonigal "used his business network before he retired to start his own business," broke the law and should have filled out his FBI travel and financial forms, but he was never charged. for espionage.
' I stand before you with a deep sense of remorse and sorrow for my actions ,' McGonigal told the judge, before whom he accepted full responsibility and accountability. He apologized for the pain and sorrow he caused former colleagues, friends and to his FBI family – especially his wife and two children in their 20s and expressed “shame for the embarrassment I caused the FBI, writes the Washington Post.
Cooperation with oligarch Deripaska
In a parallel federal prosecution in Manhattan, McGonigal earlier pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money and violate US sanctions aimed at punishing Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal was tasked with investigating Deripaska, whose indictment on sanctions-violation charges was unsealed months before McGonigal's.
The allegations against McGonigal shocked the quiet world of his fellow senior US intelligence officials, given his depth of knowledge of US espionage practices and extraordinary access to sensitive information. Of concern was his access to investigations of foreign spies or US citizens suspected of working on behalf of foreign governments, as well as the loss of US agents overseas.
He worked for Deripaska for 25 thousand euros per month
McGonigal's work for Deripaska began in 2019, when he was legitimately hired as a consultant and investigator by a law firm trying to overturn the aluminum magnate's US sanctions list. But McGonigal admitted that over several months in 2021, he took on additional investigative duties for which he was paid with money he knew were illegal payments from a Cyprus bank filtered through a New Jersey company.
McGonigal was tasked with uncovering the dirty deeds of a Russian oligarch, Vladimir Potanin, Deripaska's rival, with whom he had fought for control of giant Russian industrial metals companies after they were privatized in the 1990s.
However, after Russia's annexation of Crimea, Deripaska was banned from doing business with US banks and other entities. However, McGonigal negotiated with a Deripaska associate for monthly payments of $25,000 to be sent to an account controlled by Sergey Shestakov, a translator for the US government who was a former Russian diplomat.
Shestakov was indicted on McGonigal and pleaded not guilty and will face trial in June in Manhattan on charges of conspiracy, violating US sanctions law, money laundering and making false statements.
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