The Messenger: The FBI’s former director of counterintelligence in New York, Charles McGonigal, pleaded guilty in a Washington federal court to secretly taking $225,000 from former Albanian intelligence officer Agron Nezaj.
Nezaj was previously an intelligence agent that McGonigal, 55, had helped in overseas business dealings, the New York Times reports.
Nezaj, who is currently an American citizen residing in New Jersey, became an informant for the FBI’s investigation into McGonigal, according to court documents.
McGonigal faced a nine-count indictment charging him with failing to report contacts with foreign officials, cash payments he received, and trips he took to Europe with Nezaj in 2017 and 2018 that he and the FBI did not pay for.
As part of a plea deal, McGonigal only pleaded guilty to one of those charges in the US District Court of the District of Columbia in Washington on Friday. The deal means that McGonigal’s case will not go to trial. more