The Washington federal court today sentenced former FBI official Charles McGonigal to 28 months in prison, “for serious breach of public trust”, related to the 225 thousand dollars he received from the Albanian-American Agron Nezaj and the failure to declare contacts with officials of Albania, including Prime Minister Edi Rama.
According to prosecutors in the case, Mr. McGonigal not only failed to declare his receipt of the money, but advanced Mr. Nezaj’s business interests and lied to the FBI about their joint activities, thereby concealing the fact that he had conflicts of interest and private financial interests. .
“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, not to commit them,” the document states.
In September, Mr. McGonigal pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to all charges related to Albania, including unreported contacts with Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, and the prime minister’s unofficial adviser, Dorian Ducka.
The guilty plea came as part of a deal between prosecutors and Mr McGonigal’s lawyers. In exchange for pleading guilty to one of the counts of the indictment, that of hiding material evidence, the prosecutors waived the other eight counts./VOA
