NEW YORK: A former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence officer who investigated Russian oligarchs has been indicted on charges he secretly worked for one in violation of US sanctions. The officer was also accused of accepting cash from a former foreign security official in a separate indictment.
Charles McGonigal, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in New York from 2016 to 2018, is accused in an indictment Monday of working with a former Soviet diplomat-turned-Russian interpreter on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire. Allegedly referred to in code as “The Big Man” and “The Client”.
The Justice Department said McGonigal, who participated in the investigation into Russian oligarchs including Deripaska, worked for Deripaska’s sanctions removal in 2019 and took money from him in 2021.
The FBI investigates McGonigal, showing a desire to go after one of his own men. Still, the impeachment is an unpleasant headline for the FBI at a time when the bureau is embroiled in separate, politically charged investigations — the handling of classified documents by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — newly ascendant Republicans in Congress. vowed to investigate as high-profile FBI and Justice Department decisions.
McGonigal and Interpreter, Sergei Shestakov Saturday — McGonigal to John F. After landing at Kennedy International Airport, Shestakov was arrested at his home in Morris, Connecticut—and in a federal prison in Brooklyn. Both pleaded not guilty on Monday and were released on bail.
McGonigal, 54, and Shestakov, 69, have been charged with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and money laundering and money laundering conspiracy. Shestakov is also accused of making material misrepresentations to the FBI.
McGonigal “has had a long, distinguished career with the FBI,” her attorney, Seth Ducharme, told reporters as he left court following his arraignment with McGonigal.
“This is obviously a distressing day for Mr. McGonigal and his family, but we will review the evidence, we will examine it closely and we have a lot of confidence in Mr. McGonigal,” said Ducharme, the former top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn. .
Messages seeking comment were left for lawyers for Shestakov and Deripaska.
McGonigal was separately charged in federal court in Washington, DC with concealing at least $225,000 in cash, allegedly obtained from a former Albanian intelligence officer while working for the FBI.
The indictment does not charge or characterize the payment to McGonigal as a bribe, but federal prosecutors say that while concealing the payment from the FBI, she acted as an FBI supervisor for the purpose of financial gain to the ex-intelligence officer. .
They included an offer that a pharmaceutical company pay the person’s company $500,000 in exchange for time at a business meeting involving a representative of the US delegation to the United Nations.
In a bureau-wide email on Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said McGonigal’s alleged conduct was “wholly inconsistent with the men and women of the FBI who I demonstrate every day through their actions to uphold the public trust.” deserve.”
The US Treasury Department added Deripaska to its sanctions list in 2018 for his alleged ties to the Russian government and Russia’s energy sector amid Russia’s ongoing threats to Ukraine.
In September, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Deripaska and three associates with violating US sanctions by conspiring to ensure that her child was born in the United States.
Shestakov, who worked as an interpreter for federal courts and prosecutors in New York City after retiring as a diplomat in 1993, helped connect McGonigal to Deripaska, according to the indictment.
In 2018, when McGonigal was still working for the FBI, Shestakov introduced her to a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who worked as an agent for Deripaska, the indictment said. The man is not named in court papers, but the Justice Department says he was “rumored in public media reports to be a Russian intelligence officer.”
According to the indictment, Shestakov asked McGonigal for help in getting the agent’s daughter an internship in the New York Police Department’s anti-terrorist and intelligence units. Prosecutors say McGonigal consented and told a police department liaison officer, “I’m interested in her father for a number of reasons.”
According to the indictment, a police sergeant later informed the NYPD and the FBI that the woman claimed to have an “unusually close relationship” with an FBI agent whom, she said, provided her access to confidential FBI files. It was The indictment states that Sargent felt that “it was unusual for a college student to receive such special treatment from the NYPD and the FBI”.
According to the indictment, after retiring from the FBI, McGonigal went to work in 2019 as a consultant and investigator for an international law firm seeking to reverse Deripaska’s sanctions, known as “delisting”. .
Prosecutors say the law firm paid McGonigal $25,000 through a corporation owned by Shestakov, though the work was ultimately disrupted by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, according to the indictment, Deripaska’s agent enlisted McGonigal and Shestakov to dig up dirt on a rival oligarch whom Deripaska was fighting for control of a large Russian corporation, in exchange for $51,280 up front and $41,790 a month. The payment was made through a Russian bank. to a New Jersey company owned by a friend of McGonigal’s. Prosecutors say McGonigal kept her friend in the dark about the true nature of the payment.
McGonigal is also accused of concealing from the FBI key details of a 2017 trip she took to Albania with a former Albanian intelligence officer who allegedly gave her at least $225,000.
Once there, according to the Justice Department, McGonigal met with the prime minister of Albania and urged caution in granting oil field drilling licenses to Russian front companies in the country. McGonigal’s Albanian contacts had a financial interest in those decisions.
In an example of how McGonigal allegedly blurred personal gain with professional responsibilities, prosecutors in Washington say she gave “reason” to the FBI’s New York office to launch a criminal lobbying investigation involving former The Albanian intelligence officer was to serve as a confidential human source.
Prosecutors allege that McGonigal did this without disclosing to the FBI or the Justice Department his financial relationship with the man.