Charles McGonigal, a former FBI official, was sentenced to over two years in prison for hiding hundreds of thousands of dollars he received from a former Albanian intelligence officer.
McGonigal, 55, pleaded guilty in September to one count of concealing material facts, punishable by up to five years in prison, and Washington prosecutors dropped the other eight counts. While still working at the FBI, McGonigal accepted at least $225,000 from the individual in 2017.
McGonigal was the leader of the counterintelligence division of the FBI’s New York City office from 2016 to 2018. In September, he pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Washington, admitting to nondisclosures from Agron Neza, a former Albanian intelligence officer.
The Department of Justice announcement Friday marks the second prison sentence for McGonigal. He was sentenced to a little over four years in prison in December for his role in working with a sanctioned Russian oligarch and ordered to pay a fine of $40,000 and forfeit $17,500.
In that incident, the DOJ charged McGonigal with money laundering and violating sanctions to help Oleg Deripaska, a Russian energy magnate. He pleaded guilty in federal court in New York in August.
Friday’s sentence will be served consecutively with December’s sentence, the Justice Department said, meaning McGonigal is facing a total of six years and six months in prison.
In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors in Washington had to go over multiple investigations McGonigal was privy to, investigating potential compromises.
“The defendant worked on some of the most sensitive and significant matters handled by the FBI,” prosecutors said, per CBS News. “His lack of credibility, as revealed by his conduct underlying his offense of conviction, could jeopardize them all. The resulting internal review has been a large undertaking, requiring an unnecessary expenditure of substantial governmental resources.”
McGonigal expressed his remorse before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him, according to the Associated Press.
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“For the rest of my life, I will be fighting to regain that trust and become a better person,” McGonigal said.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t repair the damage,” Kollar-Kotelly said.
