A former top FBI agent in Recent York who investigated the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia in 2016 has been charged with money laundering and violating US sanctions for attempting to help Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska evade the penalties, the Justice Department said on Monday.
Charles McGonigal, the previous FBI special agent accountable for counterintelligence within the Recent York Field Office, was arrested on Saturday together with Sergey Shestakov, a court interpreter who also worked for Deripaska.
“They each previously worked with Deripaska to try and have his sanctions removed, and, as public servants, they need to have known higher,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.
The 21-page indictment against the 54-year-old McGonigal, who retired from the FBI in 2018, said because the FBI special agent in charge, he received then-classified information that Deripaska could be included on the list of Russian oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin sanctioned by the US after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014.
“After McGonigal left the FBI, he and Shestakov worked on behalf of Deripaska in an unsuccessful effort to have those sanctions lifted,” the court document says.
McGonigal, who also served because the cyber-counterintelligence section chief in Washington, was considered one of the primary FBI agents to learn that a Trump campaign official claimed that the Russians had “dirt” on then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, which triggered the investigation that continued into Donald Trump’s presidency.
Deripaska, who has close ties to Russia President Vladimir Putin, played a vital role within the probe and was hit with more sanctions for meddling within the 2016 election.
Around 2019, McGonigal and Shestakov, who had connections to Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs, introduced a Deripaska associate — who was believed to have worked in Russian intelligence — to a world law firm that had offices in Manhattan.
The Deripaska worker, in response to the indictment, wanted the law firm to work to remove the sanctions against the oligarch.
In the course of the negotiations, McGonigal met with Deripaska and other cronies at Deripaska’s homes in London and Vienna.
McGonigal and Shestakov didn’t confer with Deripaska by name but as “the person,” “our friend from Vienna,” and “the Vienna client,” court documents say.
In keeping with the terms of the agreement, Deripaska would pay the law firm $175,000 a month, with $25,000 “earmarked” for “certain other professionals.”
The law firm, not named within the indictment, hired McGonigal as a consultant and investigator.
The previous G-man asked the firm to pay him by sending $25,000 to an organization owned by Shestakov, which it did.
Within the spring of 2021, McGonigal and Shestakov began working for Deripaska without the involvement of the law firm.
The 2 men and Deripaska’s ally entered right into a contract in August 2021 to pay them via Cyprus through an organization in Recent Jersey that was owned by a friend of McGonigal’s.
In keeping with the indictment, $51,280 was wired on Aug. 13. 2021, to the Recent Jersey corporation from a Russian bank, an amount that was to be followed by monthly payments of $41,790 between that month and Nov. 18, 2021.
McGonigal is charged with 4 counts and faces a maximum of 80 years in prison.