Disgraced FBI spy Charles McGonigal's ex-mistress has branded him a treacherous “devil” who will “go to hell when he dies” after he was jailed for taking bribes from a sanctioned Russian oligarch .
Allison Guerriero – who may have initiated the investigation into the agent after discovering a bag of cash in her apartment – told : “I can't wipe the smile off my face knowing he's going to be locked up .”
Married McGonigal, a special agent who heads the FBI's counterintelligence division in New York, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to 50 months in prison for using insider knowledge to dig up dirt for notorious industrialist Oleg Deripaska.
At times, the 55-year-old even investigated the Russian, who was sanctioned in 2018 because of his country's occupation of Crimea.
Charles McGonigal, 55, was sentenced to four years in prison last week for working for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. He is pictured outside the court with his wife on Thursday
Allison Guerriero was McGonigal's lover. She tells that the former FBI agent is a “traitor.”
Pamela and husband Charles are pictured. His former lover claims he told her he was getting a divorce. “He even joked that he was going to frame his divorce papers for me for Christmas. “I knew his wife existed,” she said
Judge Jennifer Rearden called McGonigal's actions greed and money-grabbing and said he harmed national security by repeatedly violating sanctions designed to put economic pressure on Russia without achieving results without military force.
The disgraced former agent came to court with his wife Pamela, who impassionedly and desperately begged the judge for leniency in a six-page letter.
Guerriero, who dated McGonigal for 18 months before ending their relationship in December 2018, gave insight into how she claims her former lover lures people into his web.
“Charlie is the devil and the devil never comes to you with red horns and a cape.” “He comes to you with everything you've ever wanted,” she told in an exclusive interview.
“And we all wanted what Charlie gave us.” That meant attention, money, laughter, inclusion, praise – and it was all fake.
“I don’t think he received anywhere near a sufficient prison sentence. But I'm 100 percent convinced he's going to hell when he dies, so I'll just have to live with the judge's decision.”
McGonigal admitted a single count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He accepted $17,000 to get Deripaska off the sanctions list.
Prosecutors also said he and co-conspirators negotiated for $650,000 to $3 million in the hunt for electronic files that revealed hidden assets of one of the oligarch's business rivals.
The disgraced special agent, a 22-year FBI veteran, also faces sentencing in federal court in Washington, D.C. on February 16, 2024 for hiding $225,000 in cash he received from a former Albanian intelligence official when he worked for the agency.
“I just hope that Charlie gets another sentence that is consecutive rather than concurrent, so that he serves at least five more years in prison on top of his existing sentence,” said Guerriero, who moved to Florida from New York City.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has been implicated in the case – and Guerriero, 50, insists McGonigal always bragged about his friendship with the former US ambassador to the United Nations. Haley's office did not respond to a request for comment from .
Prosecutors alleged that McGonigal asked the FBI's liaison to the United Nations to broker a meeting between the founder of a Bosnian pharmaceutical company and Haley when she was at the United Nations during Trump's presidency.
It was claimed that if the meeting occurred, McGonigal's Albanian contact would receive $500,000 from the pharmaceutical company.
“He bragged a lot about his friendship with Nikki Haley,” said the former lover, a breast cancer survivor. “He thought it would impress me. When we started dating he just dropped it and when he realized I wasn't impressed he stopped.
“He told me about the UN ambassador’s new residence. He said it had beautiful, spectacular views and was wonderfully decorated.
“Charlie said Haley was very warm, had a good sense of humor and she seemed to be a very good mother, very practical. They were friends and he wanted me to know that when he was still in the courting phase with me.'
But Guerriero also criticized Haley for not denouncing her former lover when there was a connection between them.
“She's not a traitor. “But it's important to me that if someone is running for president of this country, at a time when we have a convicted traitor who was in the FBI, why not denounce him?”
Guerriero told that she and New York-based McGonigal lived in a sublet in Brooklyn and had been together since spring 2017 before ending their relationship in December 2018. She can be seen in the picture in 2017
In early April, Pamela, 54, began posting a series of shots on Instagram from billionaire playground Palm Beach, posing in a leopard-print bikini and sipping wine by a pool
Pamela posted a photo in New York City at the Hotel Chelsea. “Stopped at the beautiful Hotel Chelsea… such a beautiful place,” she wrote
McGonigal must report to prison on Feb. 26, 2024, “and he'll figure out how to survive,” Guerriero said.
“He's a social butterfly, he needs to be the center of attention and praised.” He loves being the guy everyone comes to, be it for help or to have fun. He is very, very charming.
“People are attracted to him, they want to be around him.” It's impossible not to love Charlie, or so it was. It was impossible not to be enchanted by this guy.
“I’m sure he would make friends with other inmates. He finds it easy to make friends.'
However, McGonigal, who reportedly earns more than $200,000 a year at the FBI and $850,000 a year after leaving it to work as head of global security for an international company, is affected by his lack of materialism be, added Guerriero.
“Charlie is very materialistic,” she said. “And he cannot feel uncomfortable, nor can he actually perceive discomfort. Charlies is very uneasy. He doesn't like to see anything unpleasant. He gets really upset when other people suffer.
“When I had cancer, he cried all the time. He just cried.'
Ironically, McGonigal would be distraught if he were moved from the general prison population to a separate unit because he is a former law enforcement officer, she added.
“If that were to happen it would be devastating for Charlie, he would lose all social interaction.”
“He's adaptable, but I'm not sure he can adapt so well to this situation. “I think it's going to take a huge emotional toll. And an even greater tribute to the woman.”
Pamela McGonigal wrote in her pleas to the judge, obtained by , that “trying to explain to you how Charlie's actions and his subsequent convictions have impacted our family is very difficult.”
“It brings tears to my eyes as I write this letter to you because the pain, anguish, mental and physical trauma this has caused is indescribable.”
“That wasn’t our life plan or how life was supposed to go for us…”
“After leaving the FBI, Charlie was ambitious and wanted to provide a good life for us as a family, and I believe that led him astray and caused him to lose focus on the reality of his decisions and actions.”
In the end, she added: “I ask for your leniency as you consider punishment for Charlie, as he is truly one of a kind and someone our family relies on as a strong and inspirational figure.”
Guerriero criticized those sentiments from a woman she says she falsely accused of making threats.
“Pamela McGonigal defends a traitor,” she said. “He's evil.” “If I were her, the first thing I would have done is get an annulment.”
The former lover previously condemned Pamela McGonigal for flaunting her designer jewelry on Instagram while charges were brought against her husband.
Photos include posing in a leopard-print bikini at the billionaires' playground in Palm Beach while sipping wine by the pool.
After shooting more at swanky celebrity spots in the Florida city, she posted a photo of a Chanel bag and two cocktails at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan.
“She brought her Chanel bag to court,” Guerriero said. “She’s just rubbing blood money in everyone’s face. And then she wants us to feel sorry for her?'
Guerriero previously told that she and New York-based McGonigal lived in a sublet in Brooklyn and had been together since spring 2017 before ending their relationship.
The former kindergarten substitute teacher said: “I was with him because I thought he was getting a divorce, he was finalizing the divorce. “We lived together and did the normal things that couples do.
“He even joked that he was going to frame his divorce papers for me for Christmas. I knew his wife existed. He talked about his children all the time, he talked to them in front of me.
“But one day I received an anonymous message in the mail saying, “I’m glad you have cancer and I hope you die.”
“I threw it away and it took me a few weeks to understand where it came from. I thought it was Pamela. At that point I ended the relationship.'
Guerriero, who volunteered in law enforcement, said she couldn't remember exactly how they met, but added from the start: “He was in love with me.”
“He really pursued me.” He did all the work. He initially took me on a few nice dinner dates and wooed me.
“At one point he said, 'If I can't go out with you, I'm going to look at you every time we're at the same party or event and think, 'Boy, that was a missed opportunity'.”
Deripaska has been under US sanctions since 2018 due to the Russian occupation of Crimea
Charles McGonigal and his wife Pamela are pictured leaving federal court in Manhattan after he was charged with violating U.S. sanctions and released on $500,000 bail in January
McGonigal told the judge, his voice shaking at times, that he had a “deep sense of remorse” and that he was sorry for my actions.
At the time, the McGonigal family home was a three-bedroom, three-bathroom home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, which they sold in December 2021 for $799,000.
“Were he and his wife actually estranged? “I don’t know the answer to that question,” Guerriero said. “But I know he didn’t spend a lot of money on me. He would offer, I would say I don't need anything – and now I think, thank God.
“But he himself was always materialistic and superficial. Everything had to look perfect.
“From the perfect haircut to the expensive suit, he always had an expensive suit and liked Armani. Expensive shoes too.”
When Guerriero needed time to be with her father in Florham Park, New Jersey, McGonigal came to visit – and the pair had sex in an FBI vehicle.
“It happened twice in an FBI Ford Explorer,” she told . “It was right around the corner from my dad’s house, in the parking lot of an elementary school.
“He became friends with my father, he gave him cigars, cufflinks and expensive bottles of wine. “And my father really liked him and they became good friends.”
Early in their relationship, Guerriero said she discovered a bag of cash in her apartment in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was October 2017 and the notes were tied together with rubber bands. She estimates it was around $80,000.
“I thought the money was flash rolls for his agents or a source,” she told . “I didn't think it was his.” “I was surprised he would have a lot of money in the apartment.” McGonigal, who retired from the FBI in 2018, told her he won at baseball.
Guerriero said after the breakup, she emailed McGonigal's boss, William Sweeney, with details of the affair and allegations about his ties to Albania. She told that she deleted the email.