Allison Guerriero, the former lover whose evidence helped expose disgraced FBI official Charles McGonigal, died by suicide despite relatives and friends saying they could not believe she would take her own life, Our News Outlet can exclusively report.
Guerriero, 52, was discovered dead in her rented Boynton Beach, Florida, apartment on August 27, prompting weeks of speculation about the circumstances of her death.
The former security consultant died just hours after posting a series of messages on X. In one video, she walked along a street while calling for attention to other federal officials; in another, she wrote: “I hate the FBI.”
Our News Outlet has now learned that investigators determined Guerriero’s death was a suicide.
The finding emerged after the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner rejected Our News Outlet’s request for the autopsy report. Officials cited a Florida law that shields such reports from public-record requests to protect the privacy of suicide victims and their families.
A source familiar with the investigation subsequently confirmed that suicide was listed as the cause of death but provided no additional details.
Guerriero had an 18-month affair with McGonigal, the former FBI counterintelligence chief whose criminal conduct was later exposed in part through information connected to their relationship. McGonigal was convicted of secretly working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Her death came one day after security consultant Jackie Singh published a lengthy article on the website Hacking, but Legal that sharply criticized Guerriero.
A source close to the investigation told Our News Outlet that Allison Guerriero’s death was determined to be a suicide.
Guerriero was once involved with Charles McGonigal, the former special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York counterintelligence division. McGonigal, pictured with his wife in 2023, is serving a 6.5-year prison sentence.
Singh’s article examined Guerriero’s personal life, her actions involving McGonigal, 58, and her connections to several other prominent figures.
Yet when Guerriero’s body was found at about 8 p.m., family members and close friends told Our News Outlet they could not accept that the cancer survivor had killed herself. Some suspected an accident or possible foul play.
Her 80-year-old father, Bill, said he had not seen the autopsy findings and remained uncertain about what happened. “I would like to know what they have to say,” he told Our News Outlet on Friday.
Roger Stone, a prominent Florida conservative lobbyist, close ally of President Trump and one of Guerriero’s friends, said he was stunned by the latest development.
“Based on my communications with her on the day before and the day of her passing, and her devout Catholicism, I still have a hard time believing that she took her own life,” Stone said.
Stone, who hosts a podcast focused on insider political analysis, had hired a private investigator to examine Guerriero’s death. Before she died, she had been conducting research for him.
“It’s impossible for a private investigator to reach an alternative conclusion from the state without access to the evidence, medical records or autopsy,” Stone said. “It is, of course, possible that her death was accidental.”
He added: “At this point, her family deserves privacy, and I intend to comment no further. She was a great and talented friend.”
On the day she died, Guerriero posted several messages on X, including videos of herself walking through Boynton Beach, her relatively new hometown, and saying: “Hey, good morning everybody. Friends and enemies…”
In another post on X, Guerriero wrote: “The FBI is evil.”
Police responded to Guerriero’s apartment at around 8pm on Thursday August 27
‘Characterizing her as a “mistress” is, I believe, unfair in that I believe McGonigal misled her about the status of his marriage. May she now rest in peace.’
Immediately after her death, he told Our News Outlet: ‘I heard from her by text on the day she passed away and she seemed in excellent spirits. They were work related.
‘Allison was a brilliant researcher and writer with an excellent knowledge of both law enforcement and our intelligence capabilities and wide network of contacts. She was widely respected in that world.’
Meanwhile, security consultant Singh said after being told the latest news: ‘I am saddened to learn that Ms Guerriero may have taken her own life in the wake of my story about her statements and background.’
Immediately after the death, she had said: ‘What I saw was a person who was highly destabilized by the notion that I was going to drop this piece. But I’m disturbed right now.
‘Did somebody whack her? I don’t think so. I think most likely she whacked herself. Oh man.’
Guerriero and Singh had been in contact leading up to publication, with the former sending three text messages on the day she died.
Part of the final one read obliquely: ‘I don’t wanna wreck your life like they did to me.’
Security consultant Jackie Singh’s blog post on her website, Hacking, but Legal, published the day before Guerriero died, was hugely critical of Guerriero, who later reacted to it on X
Singh later reacted to Guerriero’s death on X, admitting it’s been ‘tough to reconcile with the alleged timing of her passing’
Guerriero’s death certificate, obtained by Our News Outlet, does not reveal the cause of death because it is the short form version available to the public.
In Florida, longer versions available to family do reveal that information.
Her passing came hours after she shared a flurry of 75 posts on X, including a video of herself walking in the street demanding a spotlight on other Feds and another where she declared: ‘I hate the FBI.’
They were part of her unrelenting years-long campaign often conducted on social media against married McGonigal and her personal war against other senior figures in the agency.
She was also clearly aware of the dangers of crossing swords with Moscow after the link to one of President Putin’s cronies was revealed.
Her inner thoughts were revealed in text messages with independent researcher Anthony Gonzales, who posts information under the name Anthony Andrews. They were disclosed in Singh’s piece.
Gonzales asked her about reprisals and she replied: ‘As if I don’t have the same concerns? I turned in a traitor working for the Russians.
‘They don’t scare me. If they wanted me dead I’d be dead five or six years ago. I’m assuming they have wires up on my comms as well as Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia etc…
Guerriero was found dead at her Boynton Beach apartment on August 27 at the age of 52
‘And definitely Mexico and Colombia because of past drug trafficking investigations I was a contractor on.’
Guerriero said in another text to Gonzales: ‘I work with the military, law enforcement and the intelligence community. We always say ‘nobody would even believe us if we told them these stories’.’
And she claimed regarding McGonigal’s downfall: ‘But I did pick up a lot of trade habits that enabled me to know how to collect the right evidence on Charlie. And it was hard.’
McGonigal is serving six years in federal prison but Guerriero always believed he should have received a harsher sentence, telling Our News Outlet in 2024: ‘He’s a traitor.’
On the day of her death, she posted a selfie video of her strolling in Boynton Beach saying: ‘Hey, good morning everybody. Friends and enemies… of course I’m in the middle of all my PTSD from 9/11 but I’m actually breathing a huge sigh of relief…
‘Here’s the problem with Charles McGonigal. You know his name, but you never did before that. You knew Jim Comey’s name. You knew Chris Wray’s name.. all the names that you already know, you know. Why don’t you start looking for the names that you do not know?’
Guerriero was a former vice president of US operations for Israeli security firm Mifram while working in New York. She first met McGonigal in spring 2017 as a volunteer for the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation charity.
The then $200,000-a-year Fed wooed her over dinner, claiming he was going through a divorce from wife Pamela who he called ‘a nag’ who never agreed to sex.
Guerriero was also close to Roger Stone, the Florida-based conservative lobbyist and ally of President Trump
Stone reacted to her death on X at the time, saying Guerriero was ‘upbeat, happy, and fully engaged in her work,’ when he spoke to her the day of and before her death
His family home was in Chevy Chase, Maryland, but he lived in a sublet apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn following his 2016 New York appointment by then-FBI director Comey.
In the three years before her death, Guerriero was exclusively interviewed several times by Our News Outlet, spilling on the couple’s sex life and McGonigal’s treachery.
While they were living together in his Brooklyn apartment, McGonigal flaunted his relationship with Guerriero, taking her into the FBI’s main office in Manhattan and up to what she calls the ‘Kings of New York’ floor – introducing her as his ‘girlfriend.’
He cleverly masked signs of his overall treachery, passing off any outward clues as part of his role.
He took a trip to Albania during their relationship in 2017 and at one point asked Guerriero to accompany him to meet sanctioned metals magnate Deripaska.
According to court papers, on October 5 McGonigal received $80,000 from his former Albanian intelligence official associate in a car parked outside a New York restaurant.
Weeks later, Guerriero made a startling discovery in their apartment. A bag containing what she now knows was $80,000 in $100 bills, neatly rolled.
‘My mind went to them being what we call flash rolls, money you would give an undercover informant or an undercover agent for them to continue operating in the field,’ she told Our News Outlet.
McGonigal worked for the FBI from 1996 until his retirement in 2018, and from 2016 until he left the bureau he was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in the New York field office
Guerriero’s affair helped blow the lid on McGonigal’s crimes, which included secretly working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (pictured) who had been under US sanctions since 2018
Challenged, McGonigal claimed he had won the money betting on a baseball game. Guerriero listened patiently but was suspicious.
However, it was McGonigal’s confession that he was not divorcing his wife that led to their breakup on Christmas Eve, 2018 – three months after he retired from the FBI and later became an $850,000-a-year head of security for a bank.
Guerriero tipped off people she knew at the FBI about her suspicions in 2019 after reflecting on events.
Her accusations appeared to have fallen on deaf ears, although the wheels of justice obviously did begin to turn on McGonigal and he was arrested in January 2023.
‘After Charlie and I had broken up, I had spent a series of weeks and months rolling everything over in my head,’ she said.
‘And it had occurred to me, this guy’s a traitor. Every time I tried to talk to the FBI about it, they didn’t want to listen.’
