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McGonigal and an associate allegedly used shell companies to send and receive payments from Russian oligarch Deripaska.
Former FBI director Charles McGonigal has been sentenced to four years and one month in prison for helping a Russian oligarch who wanted to be removed from the US sanctions list.
Prosecutors had sought five years in prison in the New York case, while McGonigal had asked not to serve time behind bars.
McGonigal was the special agent in charge of the FBI's counterintelligence division in New York before retiring in 2018. In that role, he was tasked with investigating Russian oligarchs. Prosecutors say he and former Russian diplomat Sergey Shestakov violated US sanctions by agreeing to provide services to Russian billionaire and industrialist Oleg Deripaska. The US sanctioned Deripaska in 2018 after accusing him and several other Russian oligarchs and officials of "malicious activity around the globe".
Prosecutors raised allegations that the two individuals agreed to help oligarch Deripaska get his sanctions lifted. They also promised to investigate a rival oligarch, Vladimir Potanin. McGonigal and an associate allegedly used shell companies to send and receive payments from Russian oligarch Deripaska.
“McGonigal abused the office and influence his country entrusted to him by working covertly on the threats he had previously protected the country from. No one knew the gravity of McGonigal's crimes better than McGonigal himself," prosecutors wrote in the court filing.
Meanwhile, McGonigal's defense lawyers have argued that his discrediting and losing his job are punishment enough for him. They also proposed that the court should take into account his long service to the American state before making a decision.
It is worth noting that he is accused in Washington of another case. According to the file, he is accused of hiding thousands of dollars in cash from a former employee of the Albanian intelligence in 2017. In what is called the Albanian file, Prime Minister Edi Rama is also mentioned. This case is expected to go to trial on February 16, 2024./BBC
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