Former high-level FBI official hoping to resolve criminal case stemming from alleged scheme to help sanctioned Russian oligarch
By Holmes Lybrand and Kara Scannell, CNN
(CNN) — A lawyer for Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York field office who has been charged with concealing $225,000 he allegedly received from a former Albanian intelligence employee, said he expects the case against his client in Washington, DC, to be resolved without going to trial.
The 22-year veteran of the FBI, who retired in 2018, was charged in January in two separate indictments in New York and DC in the alleged scheme and for allegedly working with a sanctioned Russian oligarch after he retired.
During a status conference Friday in the DC case, McGonigal’s attorney, Seth DuCharme, noted that defendants have two choices – to plead guilty or go to trial – and said there was a “decent chance the case is going to be resolved” without having to go to trial and that they should know for certain just after Labor Day.
McGonigal has pleaded not guilty to both indictments.
DuCharme’s comments suggest that government prosecutors and McGonigal’s attorneys may be working through a plea agreement in the case, though DuCharme noted he was interested in seeing the rest of the prosecutor’s discovery in the case, which includes national defense documents that still require some redactions.
It’s unclear what a plea agreement between prosecutors and McGonigal would look like and what charges, ultimately, he might plead guilty to.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly set another hearing for September 13.
“Hopefully we’ll have a good update for you the next time we see you,” DuCharme told Kollar-Kotelly.
In the case charged in New York, a status report on that matter is due on Tuesday.
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