Testifying in New York federal court, McGonigal, 55, said he “deeply regrets” his actions in 2021 for Deripaska. He admitted to working for a Russian oligarch, investigating his business rival.
McGonigal said Deripaska accepted more than $17,000 to help gather defamatory information about his rival. He also tried to help Deripaska get out of a list of US sanctions on Russian oligarchs.
McGonigal was arrested in January this year. The U.S. Department of Justice said at the time that the ex-FBI officer, after retiring from the job, worked with Sergei Shestakov, a former Russian diplomat and naturalized American, who was arrested in New York.
Although Deripaska’s work for Deripaska took place after Deripaska’s retirement, McGonigal was charged in a separate criminal case during his tenure as head of the counterintelligence division of the FBI’s New York office. At that time, he had to hide from the service his relationship with a former representative of Albanian intelligence, from whom he received 250,000. Dollars. The man later served as a source for the FBI in a foreign lobbying investigation overseen by McGonigal.
McGonigal has been with the FBI since 1996. Activities of Russian organized crime and Russian services. He will be sentenced to five years in prison. Judge Jennifer H. Reardon will announce sentencing on December 14.
Deripaska has been subject to US sanctions since 2018 because of his ties to the Russian occupation of Crimea.