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A former high-ranking FBI agent who agreed to work as a covert investigator for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has been sentenced in New York to more than four years in prison, after pleading guilty in August to violating US sanctions and money laundering laws.
Charles McGonigal, who previously served as special agent in charge of counter-intelligence at the FBI’s New York office and who had investigated Deripaska during his time in the agency, was arrested in January. He was charged with helping the oligarch investigate his business rival and fellow oligarch Vladimir Potanin.
McGonigal “abused his position” as one of the most important counter-intelligence officers in the world, assistant US attorney Hagan Scotten told the court prior to sentencing on Thursday. Scotten said the former agent tried to “turn his credentials into cash” and was hoping to make millions of dollars in retirement from his connections.
The government had previously said that while at the FBI McGonigal was “taking advantage of his position to build a Rolodex of rogues to whom he could offer his services after retiring”.
Fighting back tears, McGonigal appealed to the court for leniency, saying he had a “deep sense of remorse and sorrow” for betraying the confidence of those closest to him and damaging the reputation of the FBI.
McGonigal’s lawyers emphasised that their client had served his country with distinction and even helped thwart an attack on the New York City subway in his years at the FBI. They had asked the judge to refrain from sentencing him to any prison time, while the government had asked the judge to impose the maximum 60 months.
Judge Jennifer Rearden ultimately handed down a 50-month sentence, as well as a $40,000 fine and three years of supervised release. She said McGonigal “knew that his actions violated . . . sanctions” and that he had “posed a great risk to national security”.
Deripaska, who made his fortune in metals, was first sanctioned by the US in 2018, in response to Russia’s earlier annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
He is one of the few oligarchs to have spoken out against Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which he has called “madness” and a “colossal mistake” even while avoiding direct criticism of the Russian president. But his clashes with the Kremlin over the war have done little to mend his longstanding and hostile relationship with western authorities.
Prosecutors had alleged that McGonigal, who retired from the FBI in 2018 after 22 years at the agency, agreed in 2021 to “investigate a rival Russian oligarch in return for concealed payments from Deripaska”. He worked for the oligarch via a law firm and directly, they said, and earned more than $17,000 for his services.
US authorities charged Deripaska and his associates in September 2022 with violating sanctions, while Ekaterina Voronina, Deripaska’s girlfriend, was charged with making false statements to US authorities as she attempted to enter the country to give birth to the couple’s child.
In April, Deripaska defeated an attempt by a former business associate to have him fined or jailed for contempt of court in London’s High Court.
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