Category: MIL-OSI

The majority of my 13-year FBI career has been spent combating violent crimes in New Orleans and Jackson. I worked on the Violent Crime Task Force in New Orleans and was a SWAT operator, Behavioral Analysis Unit coordinator, legal advisor, and cruise ship coordinator.

After completing an 18-month assignment to the Human Resources Division, I was promoted to supervisory spent agent in Jackson. I currently supervise the Safe Streets Task Force, Violent Crime Task Force, Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, and Indian Country investigations. I am also a firearms instructor and physical fitness administrator.

What is the best career or life advice you have to give?  

Stay adaptable, because you can discover your true mission. When I joined the FBI, I wanted to be an attorney. However, I soon realized that I wanted to be an agent. My first office was New Orleans, where I worked violent crimes and violent crimes against children cases. I wanted to take my career further and became a SWAT operator. I then had the opportunity to go to Headquarters to see how that works. While I enjoyed my experience, my true interest was being directly involved in combating crime. My advice is to pursue what you love, and for me, that is investigating violent crime.

Share the thing you’re most proud of from your FBI career. 

I’m most proud of the people I’ve worked with and the opportunities I’ve been given. The FBI is like no other career, and I’m honored to say I’m a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I started my career with the FBI in May 2008.

My first assignment after Quantico was the Denver Division, Colorado Springs Resident Agency, where I have been lucky enough to stay. I worked national security for the first three years and have worked violent crime ever since. I am also a member of the Denver Division’s Evidence Response Team and a Behavioral Analysis Unit coordinator.

Describe your most memorable case or investigative success.

The case I consider my biggest success was a particularly heinous domestic violence incident that occurred on the Fort Carson military base. The victim was a female service member, and her husband was a civilian, so the case was ours. The husband had beaten his wife, who was pregnant, numerous times over the course of three days. After repeated beatings, the wife escaped the house, but their 1-year-old daughter was still in the residence. The husband called the wife threatening the child, and the wife could hear the child crying in the background, so she finally called the police.

My interview with the wife revealed they had been married for four years and he had been beating her the entire time. We arrested the husband and placed him in federal custody. The judge ordered the husband to have no contact with the victim, but he began contacting her almost immediately and pressuring her to change her story. As time went by, the victim became cooperative with the husband and assisted him in his efforts to hide their contact. Nonetheless, we were able to get all of the calls between them and with some additional investigation, were able to prove it was the husband and wife communicating. All of the extra work allowed us to add witness tampering to the list of charges against the husband.

I entered the FBI Academy in March 1998. I was first assigned to the Washington Field Office, where I worked national security matters and white-collar crime, including espionage, health care fraud, and corporate and securities fraud. While in Washington, I served as a member of the original HazMat evidence response team.

I then transferred to Sacramento, where I worked health care fraud and supported the SWAT team. I then spent time at FBI Headquarters preparing the Director’s briefing materials for domestic and international engagements and then in the Las Vegas Division addressing a large mortgage fraud caseload. I was then promoted to supervise the IT staff and cyber threat analysts at the Internet Crime Complaint Center in West Virginia. I have been serving as a supervisory special agent in Springfield since 2017 and currently oversee cyber, human intelligence, and other efforts.

Describe your most memorable case or investigative success. 

My most memorable case was the opportunity to work on the Robert Hanssen investigation. I was in charge of reviewing all of the electronic evidence in the case and was the first to see notable information about his dead drops and letters to the Russians.  

The beauty of the FBI is that it takes you places you would never expect. I’ve worked in Maersk’s headquarters in Norfolk when its ship, the Alabama, was hijacked by Somali pirates. Years later, when I was serving as a public affairs officer in New York, I was invited to the premier of a movie about the incident.

I’ve followed an espionage subject in Asia; shared a meal with a convicted al Qaeda terrorist in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and attended more than 30 congressional briefings on the 2012  Benghazi attack.

In 2020, I spent almost 200 days managing civil unrest in Seattle. Along with my team, we uncovered the movements of a racially motivated violent extremist group that covered four continents. Before joining the FBI, I was the assistant district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and I worked as a child advocate who envisioned a world safe for kids to grow up, free of violence.  

Who made a difference in your career? How? 

The FBI Philadelphia recruiter who convinced me I was “FBI material.” He sought me out at a career fair where I was representing the district attorney’s office. He challenged my perception of what an FBI agent looked like and changed the course of my life.

I never considered this as a path for myself. I was the first person in my family to go to college and practically raised myself. Being an FBI agent was the furthest thing from my mind. But my life is so much more incredible than I ever could have imagined. I remain in contact with my recruiter to this day. Thank you, Jeffrey Covington!

I have been an FBI agent since 2006. I worked organized crime in New York City for six years until my transfer to the Buffalo Field Office. I am currently enjoying working violent crime/gangs on the Safe Streets Task Force.

What is the best career or life advice you’ve been given?

Exercising good judgment trumps every other skill one can have.

What is the best career or life advice you have to give?

If you truly want something, go after it with all you have. Don’t let up when others try to persuade you otherwise. Don’t let up when people tell you it cannot happen. Trust your gut and go for it! It may take a lot of courage and perseverance, but you will be the better for it. If I heeded the so-called sage advice of others, I would not be an FBI agent.

What does it mean to make room at the table? Why does it matter?

I work on a task force with many other agencies. In this context, making room at the table means everyone contributing to a common goal of holding accountable those who are responsible for so much of the violence in our city. At the agent level, it means checking your ego at the door, rolling up your sleeves, and getting things done. At levels higher than me, it means making room at the podium, so as to give credit to all agencies involved in accomplishing our shared mission; it means shared case ownership. This is so important because without this collaboration, we will only accomplish a fraction of what is possible.