John Minchillo/AP
- Charles McGonigal pleaded guilty on Tuesday to working with a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
- The former FBI agent was once a top counterintelligence chief.
- He admitted to money laundering and violating sanctions.
Charles McGonigal, the FBI's former chief New York City spyhunter, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to working with a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
McGonigal pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions.
His plea marks what could be the beginning of the end of one of the most embarrassing scandals in FBI history. Sources from within the government have repeatedly denied that McGonigal engaged in any espionage, a crime he was never charged with. But the fact that McGonigal broke the law to do any work for the Russian industrial magnate Oleg Deripaska is itself hugely embarrassing, given Deripaska's closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the many US secrets that McGonigal was charged with keeping.
McGonigal's co-defendant, Sergey Shestakov, a former Russian diplomat who later became a US citizen and worked as an interpreter in the federal courts, was not present at the Tuesday hearing. Shestakov has pleaded not guilty to the same five counts that McGonigal was initially charged with. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McGonigal faced two indictments — one in New York and one in Washington DC — in January of this year after a secret grand jury investigation into the counterintelligence chief, and specifically, his relationship with a representative of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch.
Insider previously reported that federal prosecutors charged McGonigal with money laundering and making false statements in his mandatory employee disclosures to the FBI. He was also charged with taking money from a representative of Deripaska, which violated US economic sanctions against Russia.
In court, McGonigal read from a handwritten statement. He admitted that he took money to collect information about Vladimir Potanin, a business competitor of Deripaska's, in order to get him sanctioned.
"I never intended to hurt the US, the FBI, my family and friends," he said in court, choking up as he thanked the FBI and prosecutors who he had once worked alongside. He said he was "deeply remorseful" for his actions. He described how he had knowingly routed payments from a Russian Gazprombank account associated with Deripaska through Cyprus to a New Jersey corporation. His purpose, he said, was to conceal the source of the payment which he knew to be in violation of US sanctions.
Prosecutors filed a document today describing the specifics of the crime that McGonigal plead guilty to. In court, they described some of the evidence that would have come to light had McGonigal's case proceeded to trial. It included, they said, electronic messages showing that McGonigal and Shestakov stood to gain as much as $3 million if they succeeded in obtaining records showing Potanin's hidden assets. They also said they had evidence of a meeting that the two men held in Manhattan with an agent of Deripaska's, a man who has been named in earlier court proceedings as Yevgeny Fokin.
On Tuesday, Judge Jennifer Rearden pointed out that McGonigal is also being prosecuted for a separate charge in Washington DC in which he is accused of soliciting a $500,000 bribe to help set up a meeting between the US and the UN. Rearden said McGonigal's sentences could be consecutive.
Outside of the courtroom, McGonigal's attorney, Seth DuCharme, said, "He's had a black cloud hanging over him for a long time. Now, hopefully, the clouds are starting to part a little bit."
When asked whether McGonigal's plea agreement required that he cooperate with the government, DuCharme simply replied "the agreement is the agreement."
McGonigal will be sentenced on December 14.