Ex-chief of FBI’s NYC counterintelligence division pleads guilty to helping sanctioned Russian oligarch find dirt on enemies

NEW YORK — Former chief of the FBI’s New York City counterintelligence division Charlie McGonigal pleaded guilty in Manhattan Tuesday to helping a sanctioned Russian oligarch find dirt on his enemies after his retirement.

The former special agent in charge, who retired from the FBI in 2018 after a two-decade career that included Russian foreign counterintelligence work and investigating oligarchs, was arrested in January on charges in New York and Washington, D.C., alleging he worked for Russian President Vladimir Putin associate and aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska after his retirement.

The feds said McGonigal attempted to remove Deripaska’s sanctions and probed one of his Russian rivals in exchange for secret payments. Deripaska was featured in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s election interference report.

Per the terms of his plea agreement, McGonigal was permitted to cop to one count of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law the U.S. uses to sanction foreign countries. He faced five counts upon his arrest.

The veteran special agent, his voice cracking, asked U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden if he could stand in court to admit to his crimes between spring to November 2021, for which he said he was “deeply remorseful.”

“They’re my words in totality, your honor,” he said.

“About three years after my retirement from the FBI, while I was living in Manhattan, I agreed with another party to collect open source derogatory information about a Russian oligarch named Vladimir Potanin,” on Deripaska’s behalf, McGonigal said.

“I knew Deripaska had been put on a sanctions list by the U.S. government,” he said. “I understood that the work I was collecting would provide some benefit to Deripaska,” and ultimately would be used to get Potanin — a former first deputy of Russia last year estimated to be the country’s richest man with a net worth of $23.7 billion — on the U.S. sanctions list.

The disgraced FBI chief said he received $17,500 laundered through two corporations not registered to him “to make it difficult to attribute the source of the payments to Deripaska.”

“I take full responsibility as my actions were never intended to hurt the United States, the FBI and my family and friends,” McGonigal said.

Manhattan Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Dell said had McGonigal proceeded to trial, prosecutors would have presented evidence of his contract with Deripaska and a trove of photographic evidence and banking records.

Dell said investigators had messages between October and November 2021 showing McGonigal and his conspirators negotiating for him to obtain electronic files revealing hidden assets valued at $500 million — for a fat fee of $650,000 to $3 million.

Prosecutors would have presented testimony about a meeting between McGonigal, his co-conspirator, former Soviet diplomat Sergey Shestakov, and an agent for Deripaska in Manhattan, Dell said.

“Economic sanctions are a critical component of our national security policy,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Smith said. “They must be fully and fairly applied to effectively limit the resources of those who threaten to harm the United States and our global allies.”

The charges against McGonigal in D.C. are outstanding. In that case, he’s accused of concealing a fruitful relationship with an Albanian intelligence official during his time at the bureau who allegedly paid him $225,000, and other foreign officials.

McGonigal’s sentencing is set for Dec. 14. He faces up to five years in prison.

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