WASHINGTON, DC: Charles McGonigal, one of the most senior FBI agents to ever be charged criminally, entered a second guilty plea to accusations that he concealed a $225,000 payment from an Albanian intelligence official while performing his official duties.
In federal court in Washington, DC, the 55-year-old former agent admitted on Friday, September 22 that he accepted the payment in 2018 while managing counterintelligence at the FBI's New York field office, reports ABC News.
Prosecutors said the Albanian official then worked as an FBI source in a criminal case involving foreign political lobbying that McGonigal oversaw.
What does Charles McGonigal's plea deal entail?
On Friday, Charles McGonigal entered a guilty plea to a single count of concealment of material facts. He could spend up to five years in jail and pay up to $250,000 in fines.
The judge has set a sentencing hearing for February 16, 2024. Prosecutors agreed to ask the judge to drop eight other charges from the initial indictment in exchange for the defendant's guilty plea, as per CBS News.
Charles McGonigal's initial indictment
McGonigal, who left the FBI in 2018, had already entered a guilty plea in New York to charges related to his connections to the sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
He was reportedly arrested in January on those grounds and is now awaiting sentencing. According to CBS News, the hearing is expected to take place on December 14.
Who appointed Charles McGonigal?
McGonigal was appointed Section Chief of the Counterintelligence Division's Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section in 2016. He was named "Special Agent in Charge of the Counterintelligence Division for the New York Field Office" by James B Comey on October 4, 2016.
