Former FBI Agent Pleads No Contest to Beating Wife, Avoids Jail Time

Law enforcement officers walk out of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington on Jan. 28, 2019. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A former high-level FBI agent pleaded no contest on Monday to a charge of aggravated assault.

Richard Trask worked as a special agent for the FBI for 10 years.

Trask was arrested over the summer for allegedly assaulting his wife at their home in Kalamazoo County.

Body camera footage and police reports showed Trask’s wife called the police around 2 a.m. on July 18. She said her husband took her to a swinger’s party and after returning home, he assaulted her.

Deputies found Trask shirtless driving his wife’s vehicle in the parking lot of a shopping center. Deputies saw blood on his face. They arrested him.

Trask’s wife, Heather Foulke, spoke during the hearing on Monday, news outlets reported.

Foulke said she thinks her husband may have been drugged at the party.

Trask asked for a lenient sentence, arguing he’s suffered a lot and that his wife has forgiven him.

“As the result of the situation I’ve lost the only career I’ve known. My retirement is gone. I’ve lost friends. My reputation has been destroyed. My children have had to face questions. My wife has faced harassment. My family has had to further suffer because I can no longer provide for them,” he said, WOOD-TV reported. “The events in July were a tragedy. I take full responsibility for my actions.”

The judge overseeing the case sentenced Trask to time served—he had spent two days in jail—and ordered him to pay fines and fees.

A lawyer representing Trask couldn’t be reached.

Jeffrey Getting, the prosecutor who brought the charge, told The Epoch Times in an email that the case was difficult because Trask’s wife wouldn’t cooperate.

“Her refusal to testify against the defendant compromised our ability to take the case to trial. The agreement in the case provided the State with what was most important to us, a conviction on his record for the violent assault perpetrated by Trask on his wife. While I would [have] liked to have seen a greater penalty imposed by the Court, I am satisfied knowing that Trask is no longer employed by the FBI and is no longer eligible to be a police officer in the State of Michigan as a result of his conviction,” he said.

The FBI fired Trask several months after he was charged.

Trask was the lead investigator in the case brought against over a dozen men who allegedly conspired to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He testified in the case at least twice.

The case has been beset by allegations of entrapment, though one man, Ty Garbin, was sentenced to over six years in prison after pleading guilty. The rest of the men are slated to go on trial next year.