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Prosecutors in January said Charles McGonigal, who led the FBI's
counterintelligence division in New York before retiring in
2018, received concealed payments from Deripaska in exchange for
investigating a rival businessman and unsuccessfully pushed in
2019 to have Deripaska's sanctions lifted.
At the time, McGonigal pleaded not guilty to four criminal
counts including sanctions violations and money laundering.
McGonigal, 55, said in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday
that he worked for Deripaska between spring and autumn of 2021
to find negative information on Vladimir Potanin in an attempt
to have the Deripaska rival put on the U.S. sanctions list.
The former FBI agent received $17,500 for that work, which was
routed from Russia through accounts in Cyprus and New Jersey in
an attempt to mask the source of the payments, he said.
McGonigal told the court he was "deeply remorseful" for his
actions.
His attorney Seth DuCharme told reporters after the hearing that
his client was treated fairly.
The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in
prison. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden is scheduled to
sentence McGonigal on Dec. 14.
Matthew Olsen, who leads the U.S. Department of Justice's
National Security Division, said in a statement that the case
shows the DOJ's "resolve to pursue and dismantle the illegal
networks that Russian oligarchs use to try to escape the reach
of our sanctions and evade our laws."
U.S. prosecutors charged McGonigal as they ramped up efforts to
enforce sanctions on Russian officials and police their
suspected enablers following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022.
Deripaska, the founder of Russian aluminum company Rusal was
among the two dozen Russian businessmen and government officials
who Washington imposed sanctions on in 2018 in reaction to
Russia's purported meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
He and the Kremlin have denied any election interference.
Potanin, 62, is one of Russia's richest men and the president
and chairman at Nornickel, the world's largest producer of
palladium and refined nickel.
He was placed on the U.S. sanctions list in December 2022.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; editing by Grant McCool)
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