Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent Charles McGonigal has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for supplying information to a Russian oligarch.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced that McGonigal, now 55, has been handed down a 50-month prison sentence, or four years and two months. Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jennifer H. Rearden said McGonigal harmed national security by flouting American sanctions when he dealt with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. McGonigal was also ordered to forfeit $17,500 and was slapped with an additional fine of $40,000.
Defense attorney Seth DuCharme attempted to urge Rearden to pass down a sentence without incarceration, citing McGonigal's supposed career achievements, including his work investigating two deadly bombings at U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and his work after Sept. 11.
Prosecutors argued for a maximum five-year sentence, pointing out to the judge that McGonigal was making over $200,000 annually before he retired from the FBI and that he subsequently made over $850,000 a year in the private sector when he carried out his crime. "Poverty did not motivate this crime, your honor. Greed did," said one U.S. attorney.
McGonigal is notorious for being involved in the FBI's hoax investigation that alleged without evidence that former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government to interfere in the election. (Related: Former FBI agent who handled fabricated "Trump-Russia collusion" probe has been arrested for ties to Russian oligarch.)
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McGonigal received $17,500 from Russian oligarch in exchange for information
The incident that led to McGonigal's arrest and imprisonment occurred in 2021, just after he had retired from the agency. McGonigal violated American sanctions when he supplied information to Deripaska, the founder of two major Russian industrial conglomerates.
Deripaska is a known associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has a net worth estimated at more than $3 billion. He was sanctioned by the United States in 2018 for his alleged involvement in the 2014 Russian invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea. He has since been criminally charged in the U.S. for violating the sanctions against him.
In his plea agreement, McGonigal claimed that all of the information he provided to Deripaska was open-source information. In exchange for this info, McGonigal received $17,500, laundered from Russia's Gazprom Bank to a bank in Cyprus and then to a business bank account in New Jersey, from where it then landed into McGonigal's private account.
"Charles McGonigal violated the trust his country placed in him by using his high-level position at the FBI to prepare for his future in business," said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. "Once he left public service, he jeopardized our national security by providing services to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian tycoon who acts as Vladimir Putin's agent."
Given the chance to speak, McGonigal told Rearden that he had a "deep sense of remorse and am sorry for my actions."
"I recognize more than ever that I've betrayed the confidence and trust of those close to me," he added. "For the rest of my life, I will be fighting to regain that trust."
Learn more instances of corruption within the FBI at FBICorruption.news.
Watch this report from OAN noting how McGonigal is also linked to the Albanian mafia.
This video is from the News Clips channel on Brighteon.com.
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