The federal court in Washington D.C. handed down a 28-month prison sentence to former FBI official Charles McGonigal on Friday for "serious breach of public trust," concerning the $225,000 he received from Albanian-American Agron Neza and failure to disclose contacts with officials from Albania, including Prime Minister Edi Rama, VOA reports.
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| On February 9, 2023, Charles McGonigal, a former FBI agent, makes an appearance at Manhattan Federal Court in New York. |
In the courtroom before the sentencing, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly remarked that McGonigal's acceptance of money from someone who introduced him to foreign officials in Albania "is a very serious breach" and that it appears McGonigal had lost his "moral compass" towards the end of his career.
During the court session, the judge stated that McGonigal's actions could only be motivated by "recklessness and arrogance," believing he could engage in such actions without consequences.
In her decision, Judge Kollar-Kotelly took into account McGonigal's acceptance of guilt for receiving $225,000 from Mr. Neza and his connections with Albanian officials, expressing remorse.
Prosecutors from the Department of Justice had sought a 30-month prison term and a $95,000 fine for McGonigal's "serious breach of public trust," as outlined in the memorandum concerning the Albania case.
During the session, prosecutor Elizabeth Ann Aloi stated that McGonigal's violations were blatant and constituted corruption.
"We're dealing with a high-ranking FBI official who sold his position 'for $225,000'," she said.
"He didn't take money from a close friend," she said, referring to Mr. Neza, "but from someone connecting him to foreign officials."
The prosecutor continued by stating that he "went so far as to open an FBI investigation into a lobbyist" based on information he received from his connections in Albania.
McGonigal himself expressed regret for his actions.
At the end of the session, McGonigal declined to answer questions from Voice of America, saying "not now," while his lawyer, Seth DuCharme, stated, "We are very relieved."
Although McGonigal's attorneys requested that the sentencing in Washington be concurrent with that in New York, where he was sentenced to 50 months in prison for violating U.S. sanctions against Russia, the judge decided that the Washington sentence would be separate.
If the sentences were to be concurrent, it would mean that the Washington court's sentence would be part of the 50 months imposed for the New York case. However, both the prosecutors and the judge agreed that McGonigal should serve a separate sentence for the charges related to Albania.
According to the case prosecutors, McGonigal not only failed to disclose the money he received but also advanced the business interests of Mr. Neza and misled the FBI about their joint activities, thus concealing his conflict of interest and private financial interests. He also concealed meetings with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, his advisor Dorian Duçka, and others.
"This essentially constitutes corruption that undermines transparency and trust in the integrity of the Executive Branch of the government. The defendant had sworn to investigate and prevent crimes against the United States and not to commit them," prosecutors stated in the document seeking McGonigal's sentencing.
In September, McGonigal pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to all charges related to Albania, including the previously unreported contacts with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and his unofficial advisor, Duçka, in exchange for the dismissal of eight other counts in the indictment.
Prime Minister Rama stated that he had "never met Mr. Neza before. I have not exchanged any letters, interests, or anything else, but I have only met him in the presence of the former senior FBI official."
Prosecutors: Charges Can Be Proven "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt"
The agreement reached in September between McGonigal and prosecutors made it possible for the case not to go to trial. However, it stated that the parties declare that "if the case were to go to trial"... the United States (prosecutors) could prove the facts for which McGonigal admitted guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."
In the September session, McGonigal answered "yes" to all charges related to these facts.
They included, among other things, his visits to Albania, meetings with Prime Minister Rama, and "the maintenance of an ongoing relationship with him" and Duçka, as well as the fact that he had "informed the Department of Justice Prosecutor ... about a possible criminal investigation of an American citizen, who was registered to lobby 'for a party that was not Prime Minister Rama's'."
The Opening of the Investigation into the American Lobbyist
The indictment does not identify the American lobbyist or the Albanian party.
But on November 14, 2017, lobbyist Nick Muzin deposited with the Department of Justice, albeit belatedly, documents about his lobbying activities months earlier on behalf of the Democratic Party.
McGonigal informed the U.S. Department of Justice about this case on November 25, "after he had received information about the American lobbyist" from Duçka the day before.
At that time, precisely two days earlier, on November 22, BIRN had made public the fact that Muzin had declared receiving $500,000 from the Democratic Party.
Then, in January 2018, the former FBI official received information again, this time from Albanian-American Neza. The latter, according to the indictment, obtained the information from the office of the Prime Minister of Albania.
When speaking in parliament about this issue last year, Mr. Rama stated that "the time to which this moment refers coincides with the days after the scandal came out in the media here and I or my office, had nothing else to do with it, except for the information that came out in the media, so if we had any, how would we keep them hidden?", adding that "if I had any information, more than what came out in the media, about the terrible fact that the Russians were funding the largest opposition in this country to overthrow the government, I would have conveyed it to anyone I could, without any discussion, from sensitive partner organizations for these issues and certainly the FBI, at the very least."
But in fact, at that time, there was no mention of Russian financing. The article published by BIRN did not deal with this issue at all, which emerged later, in March 2018, after suspicions were raised by an article published by the American magazine "Mother Jones."
On the other hand, the Prime Minister has never explained why Neza and Duçka were directly involved in this issue, the former serving as a confidential source for the FBI for this case and the latter, Mr. Rama's advisor, sponsoring the trips of witnesses from Europe for their meetings with the FBI, while McGonigal did not inform the FBI about his financial relationship with Mr. Neza, or his ongoing contacts with Mr. Duçka.
Documents accessed by Voice of America show that the investigation was opened in February 2018, for some inconsistencies in completing the FARA documents, the law for lobbyist registration, and that it raised questions among FBI staff.