Ex-FBI official sentenced to over 2 years in prison for concealing payment from Albanian businessman

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official was sentenced to more than two years in prison for concealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from a businessman with ties to the Albanian government. Charles McGonigal supervised national security operations for the FBI in New York before his retirement in 2018. Prosecutors say McGonigal appeared to advance Albanian interests in the U.S. after he asked for and received roughly $225,000 from a man who had worked for an Albanian intelligence agency. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Friday sentenced McGonigal to two years and four months in prison on top of his 50-month sentence for a separate criminal conviction in New York.