When one of the FBI's top counterintelligence agents was arrested in January 2023 and charged with doing illegal work for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the US national security community was stunned.
Retired by then, Charles McGonigal, who had spent the latter part of his career investigating Russian spies and oligarchs, ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced that December to more than four years in prison.
He wasn't the only person implicated by US authorities in the Deripaska case.
After more than 16 months of delays and postponements, Sergei Shestakov, a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who became a naturalized US citizen and later worked as an authorized US court interpreter, is set to go on trial on June 17 on charges similar to those McGonigal faced.
Like McGonigal, Shestakov is accused of conspiring to help Deripaska evade US sanctions imposed on him in 2018, as well as conspiring to commit money laundering. Shestakov, who was arrested at the same time as McGonigal, is also accused of lying to FBI agents.
The trial, and the pretrial legal wrangling, have drawn less attention mainly because Shestakov is less well known than McGonigal. Until his retirement in 2018 from the FBI's New York office, McGonigal was at the vanguard of the bureau's efforts to track Russian spies and oligarchs, including Deripaska.
In addition to being business partners, Shestakov and McGonigal, along with another Russian man, are linked to another former Russian tycoon, Vladimir Gusinsky, who for many years spent most of his time at a Connecticut mansion.
Gusinsky has not been implicated in the criminal case against Shestakov and McGonigal. However, he has drawn the interest of the FBI, with agents twice questioning his now estranged wife and employees of the couple's Connecticut household about his relationship to them. Gusinsky was introduced to McGonigal by Shestakov and socialized with them both.
Shestakov has pleaded innocent to the charges.
Metals Magnates
According to extensive filings in a US federal court in Manhattan, Shestakov's defense hinges in part on the question of whether the work he and McGonigal did was for the benefit of Deripaska or for his massive holding conglomerate, EN+ Group, which controls one of the world's largest aluminum companies, Rusal.
Key to that defense is an EN+ employee named Yevgeny Fokin, who the FBI alleges is an agent with Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service.
Shestakov's defense lawyer, Rita Glavin, has said in court filings that Fokin can provide evidence the work Shestakov and McGonigal were hired to do was on behalf of EN+ and involved lobbying to help advocate for the Deripaska companies, which is largely allowed under US law.
Glavin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"The claim that they were working on behalf of EN+, and not Deripaska, doesn't pass the smell test. If anything, it's a distinction without a difference," said Casey Michel, author of the book Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World.
"They were by all appearances working for the benefit of one of the most notorious oligarchs ever produced in Russia -- a man who is little more than a cutout for the Kremlin, trying to do Moscow's bidding wherever and however he can," Michel said.
Prosecutors have alleged Fokin was an "unindicted co-conspirator" with Shestakov and McGonigal. The FBI surveilled, photographed, and secretly recorded him beginning in July 2019, according to court records, and his US visa was revoked in 2022 at the behest of the bureau.
Prosecutors have skirmished with Glavin over deposing Fokin, who lives in Russia, where he works as a top adviser to Deripaska at EN+. He has refused to travel to the United States for any reason, according to court filings, fearing possible arrest.
After negotiations on whether to depose Fokin in Turkey or Dubai, the two sides agreed Fokin will testify by videoconference during the trial.
Fokin did not respond to e-mails from RFE/RL seeking comment.
Among some Russian-speaking circles in the New York City region, Shestakov was known as a fixer, a troubleshooter, and a charmer. A naturalized US citizen who previously worked for the Soviet and Russian foreign ministries, Shestakov retired to the New York area in 1993. In the 2010s, he worked as an authorized interpreter for US federal courts and for the US attorneys' offices for Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Shestakov's relationship with Fokin dates back to the 1980s, and both have been employed by Gusinsky. As recently as 2019, Shestakov had a credit card under Gusinsky's name that he used to buy, among other things, thousands of dollars' worth of tickets to professional ice hockey games.
Gusinsky did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.
'No. No Business.'
Shestakov introduced McGonigal to Fokin sometime in 2018, according to the indictment.
That April, Deripaska was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department "for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, a senior official of the Government of the Russian Federation." EN+ and Rusal were designated for sanctions at the same time.
One of Russia's wealthiest men, Deripaska minted his fortunes in the chaotic 1990s, when insider businessmen fought pitched and often bloody battles for control over the country's industrial giants, such as aluminum production. He's considered a textbook example of an oligarch: a businessman with vast wealth who also has close ties to President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.
He's also been on the radar screen of US law enforcement for decades, going back at least as far as 2006, when he was denied a visa to enter the United States. The visa difficulties led him to enlist Republican-linked lobbying firms, and in the late 2010s he invested in projects with Paul Manafort, the Republican operative who briefly managed President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
In September 2022, Deripaska was indicted on charges of trying to evade US sanctions. The charges include allegations that he arranged for his pregnant girlfriend to travel to the United States to give birth so their child would be a US citizen.
Sanctions against EN+ Group and Rusal were lifted in 2019 after Deripaska agreed to distance himself from ownership of the companies. He remains under sanction.
US authorities allege Fokin hired McGonigal and Shestakov to research compromising information on Vladimir Potanin, another Russian oligarch and metals tycoon who is a rival of Deripaska.
McGonigal, who retired from the FBI in late 2018, also sought to secure an internship for Fokin's daughter at the New York City Police Department, something that raised eyebrows in the department. McGonigal told authorities he was trying to cultivate Fokin as a possible double agent, according to court papers.
In late November 2021, FBI agents seized Shestakov's electronic devices. Days earlier, he was questioned about his relationship with Fokin and asked about whether he had ever done any business with him.
"No, no business," he told the FBI, according to court documents.
