Biography
John Mark Dougan is a former U.S. Marine and Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy who created anonymous sites publishing accusations and personal information about Florida law-enforcement officials. After the FBI and local police searched his home in March 2016 during a computer-crime investigation, Dougan traveled through Canada and left for Russia. He said he feared retaliation by officials he had accused of corruption. Florida prosecutors later charged him with 21 counts involving extortion and illegal recording. Russia granted him temporary asylum in February 2017 and made the status permanent in December 2018. Dougan remained in Moscow and became a prominent producer of pro-Kremlin disinformation; later allegations that he worked with Russian military intelligence are recorded as findings by Western authorities and investigators, not as adjudicated facts in his original asylum case.
