A former Russian diplomat linked to a sanctions-evasion scandal involving one of the FBI’s top former counter-intelligence agents and a notorious Russian oligarch was sentenced to two months in jail on charges of lying to US law enforcement.
Sergei Shestakov’s sentencing closes a chapter in a case that both embarrassed the FBI and also shone a new spotlight on Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin-connected billionaire who has long been on the FBI’s radar screen.
In final court filings, US prosecutors argued that Shestakov, 71, who worked as an authorized federal court interpreter after gaining US citizenship in 2013, was aware it was a crime to lie to FBI agents investigating Charles McGonigal.
At the time of retirement in 2018, McGonigal was a top official at the FBI’s New York offices, overseeing counterintelligence investigations into Russian spies and oligarchs, among other things.
At the October 16 hearing, US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff ordered Shestakov to serve two months in jail, two years of supervised release, and to pay a $100 fine — a sentence lighter than the already lenient request that prosecutors had asked for. His sentence will start in February.
Shestakov’s defense lawyer, Rita Glavin, had asked that he be sentenced to time served, meaning that he would only serve the brief time spent in federal custody in 2023 before being released on bail.
Glavin did not respond to RFE/RL’s request for comment.
An e-mail sent to the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office handling the case received an automated response, saying public affairs operations had been suspended due to the US government shutdown.
At the center of the case are conversations that Shestakov had with Yevgeny Fokin, also a former Russian diplomat whom Shestakov called an old friend from decades back.
Fokin, a top executive with Deripaska’s main holding company En+, was put under FBI surveillance beginning in July 2019, according to court records, and his electronic devices seized and searched as he entered the United States in August 2021.
His US visa was revoked the following year at the behest of the FBI, which said he was affiliated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
In court papers, US prosecutors have also alleged Fokin was an “unindicted co-conspirator” to Shestakov and McGonigal.
Deripaska, who had his own visa blocked by the FBI in the 2000s, was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in April 2018 for his ties to the Kremlin. He was indicted in 2022 for allegedly plotting to arrange for his pregnant girlfriend to give birth in the United States so the child would be a US citizen.
According to court filings, McGonigal was introduced to Fokin by Shestakov. McGonigal later went on to investigate another Russian oligarch who was a rival and competitor of Deripaska, as well as receive payments through a Cyprus company.
During the trial, defense lawyers claimed the work had been done on behalf of En+, not Deripaska, and cited testimony from Fokin. McGonigal also secured an internship for Fokin’s daughter at the New York Police Department.
At a November 21, 2021, meeting with FBI agents, Shestakov downplayed his relationship and McGonigal’s relationship with Fokin. Agents then seized his cell phone.
A week later, Shestakov filed as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, disclosing his work for Fokin and En+.
In January 2023, Shestakov was arrested at his Connecticut home, charged with five counts including lying about his relationship with Fokin, both to the FBI agents as well as on the Foreign Agents Act registration.
This past June, after the Justice Department dropped four of the counts against him, he pleaded guilty.
Among those submitting letters to the court on behalf of Shestakov was Vladimir Gusinsky, a former Russian oligarch who employed both him and Fokin for years at his media company, Media Most.
Gusinsky, who also lived in Connecticut, has himself drawn scrutiny from the FBI, who have questioned him about his relationship with both men, as well as Deripaska. Gusinsky has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
McGonigal was sentenced to more than years in prison in December 2023 after pleading guilty after pleading guilty to money laundering and sanctions evasion charges.
In her pre-sentencing motion, Glavin partially portrayed Shestakov as a victim in the case.
“His sense of fear, suspicion of the agents, and misplaced sense of loyalty overtook doing the right thing and being completely honest,” she wrote. “He will also be forever tied to a corrupt FBI Agent Charles McGonigal and he will live under a cloud of suspicion that he was a Russian spy (he was not) and a traitor.”
McGonigal was also under scrutiny for his work for an Albanian-American businessman named Agron Nezaj. In February 2024, McGonigal was sentenced to more than two years in prison for receiving a $225,000 bribe.
