Chales McGonigal. Source AP
New York: As American prosecutors step their efforts to enforce sanctions against Russian officials and police their alleged facilitators, a former top FBI official was charged on Monday with working for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
At a hearing in Manhattan federal court, Charles McGonigal, who oversaw the FBI’s counterintelligence branch in New York before retiring in 2018, entered a not guilty plea to four charges, including breaking sanctions and money laundering.
He was released on $500,000 bond, following his arrest over the weekend.
Prosecutors said McGonigal, 54, in 2021 received concealed payments from Deripaska, who was sanctioned in 2018, in exchange for investigating a rival oligarch.
McGonigal was also accused of trying in vain to have Deripaska’s sanctions lifted in 2019.
In order for sanctions to be effective, all American citizens must be subject to them equally, according to FBIAssistant Director in Charge Michael Driscoll. There are no exceptions for anyone, not even a former FBI agent, the statement reads.
Federal prosecutors in Washington claimed separately on Monday that McGonigal received $225,000 in cash from a former agent of Albania’s intelligence service who served as a source in an inquiry into foreign political lobbyingthat McGonigal was overseeing.
In that case, McGonigal is accused with nine crimes, including lying to the FBI about the nature of his contact with the subject.
Following the Manhattan hearing, the defendant’s attorney Seth DuCharme told reporters, “This is certainly a difficult day for Mr. McGonigal and his family.”
We’ll carefully examine the data and assess it, and we have a lot of faith in Mr. McGonigal.
In response to Russia’s suspected intervention in the 2016 U.S. election, Washington blacklisted twenty Russian billionaires and government officials in 2018. One of those individuals was Deripaska, the founder of the Russianaluminum corporation Rusal.
Both he and the Kremlin have denied interfering with any elections.
Sergey Shestakov, a former Soviet ambassador who later acquired American citizenship and worked as a Russian language interpreter for American courts and government organisations, was also indicted in the Manhattan case.
Shestakov allegedly submitted false statements to investigators and collaborated with McGonigal to aid Deripaska, according to the prosecution.
Shestakov was granted a $200,000 bond after entering a not-guilty plea on Monday.
U.S. efforts to put pressure on Moscow to end its conflict in Ukraine, which the Kremlin refers to as a “special military operation,” include the enforcement of sanctions.
Deripaska was accused of breaking the penalties imposed on him by setting up the births of his children in America last September.
The British businessman Graham Bonham-Carter was indicted the following month with plotting to break sanctions by attempting to remove Deripaska’s artwork from the country.
Deripaska is still at large, and Bonham-Carter is fighting Deripaska’s extradition to the US.
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