WASHINGTON (CN) — The former head of counterintelligence at the FBI’s field office in New York was sentenced to 28 months in prison on Friday for concealing overseas payments from Eastern European businessmen, including those with ties to elected officials in Albania and Bosnia.
Charles McGonigal, 55, spent 22 years working for the FBI, where he led an investigation into a massive security breach that led to the imprisonment, disappearance or execution of CIA informants in China. In a separate case out of New York, McGonigal in December was sentenced to four years in prison for his paid work for a sanctioned Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Sept. 22, McGonigal pleaded guilty in Washington to a single count of concealing material facts to avoid eight other charges brought by the Justice Department for making false statements and falsifying records regarding his overseas contacts and business deals.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, ruled that McGonigal would serve his sentences in Washington and New York consecutively. Together, the sentences add up to 78 months.
McGonigal will first serve his 50-month sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden in December. He will then begin his new 28-month sentence.
Kollar-Kotelly declined to impose a fine Friday, determining that the $40,000 fine imposed by Rearden was more than enough.
“At the end of his career, despite years of service, he seems to have lost his moral compass,” Kollar-Kotelly said before passing down the sentence.
In an emotional statement to the court, McGonigal expressed remorse for his conduct and asked the judge to be lenient in her sentence.
“I betrayed the confidence and trust of those closest to me,” he said. “I, more than anyone, know that I committed a felony as a former FBI special agent.”
McGonigal was indicted both in Washington and New York last January, sending shockwaves throughout the intelligence community as he became one of the most senior FBI officials to be charged with a crime.
At the FBI, McGonigal played a lead role in major intelligence investigations into the 2010 release of classified State Department cables by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He also helped lead a hunt for a suspected Chinese spy working as a mole inside the CIA.
McGonigal’s indictment spurred the FBI to determine whether any law enforcement or counterintelligence operations had been compromised by McGonigal’s contacts, with FBI Director Christopher Wray treating the case as a top priority.
Seth Ducharme, an attorney for the firm Bracewell who is representing McGonigal, said Friday that his client met with Justice Department officials in November, answering questions for seven hours to determine whether additional investigations had been compromised.
Elizabeth Aloi, assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, described McGonigal’s actions as a clear example of corruption. The scandal came at a time when the public’s trust in government institutions was already in stark decline.
“He sold his badge for $225,000,” she said, comparing his conduct to those of crooked cops in mafia films. She noted he had received payment in a car outside an Italian restaurant in the Bronx.
Ducharme pushed back against the government’s characterization of the seriousness of his client's crimes.
“He did not betray his country, he broke the law,” Ducharme said, urging Kollar-Kotelly to impose a sentence of between one and seven months to run concurrently with the New York sentence.
According to the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, McGonigal befriended Agron Neza, a New Jersey businessman born in Albania and a former employee of an intelligence agency there, with whom he made multiple trips to Albania between 2017 and 2018 to nurture potential business contacts. Neza has not been accused of wrongdoing.
In September 2017, McGonigal met with Dorian Ducka, a former Albanian official who served as an informal adviser to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.
At the meeting, McGonigal warned Rama about awarding oil field drilling licenses to Russian front companies. Prosecutors say the warning was intended to redirect business to Neza and Ducka.
After returning to the United States, Neza met three times with McGonigal to give him a no-strings-attached loan of $225,000. That loan came in the form of large sums of cash.
The first meeting was in a parked car outside a restaurant in New York City, where Neza paid him $80,000. The next two meetings took place in Neza’s New Jersey home, where McGonigal received further installments of $80,000 and $65,000.
McGonigal did not disclose this loan on any of his submissions to the FBI — not even on one he made just 11 days after receiving the first payment.
Later in 2017, McGonigal pushed the Justice Department to open an investigation into a U.S. citizen who was lobbying on behalf of Lulzim Basha, a political opponent of Rama’s, after receiving information on the individual from Ducka. At McGonigal's request, the FBI’s field office in New York officially opened an investigation in February 2018.
Finally, McGonigal met with two unnamed individuals from Bosnia and Herzegovina — named Persons C and D in the indictment — to set up a meeting with then-U.S. Ambassador to the United States Nikki Haley for an unspecified “political purpose that would impact the region.”
In exchange, Person D, an executive of a pharmaceutical company, would pay McGonigal $500,000 through one of Neza’s companies to protect his identity.
McGonigal has been ordered to turn himself in and begin his sentence in New York on March 18.
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