Robert Casey Jr./fbi photo

It’s the end of the road for Robert E. Casey.

The veteran FBI agent is stepping down April 30 after five years as head of the bureau’s Dallas office, according to the Associated Press. He’s planning to retire and join the private sector, AP reported.

Casey, 54, was named special agent in charge of the office in May 2006. He joined the bureau in 1986.

His tenure as head of the office included the high-profile sting involving Hosam Smadi, who thought he was detonating a bomb to blow up a Dallas skyscraper.

He was also the target of threats from an agent in the office who was going through marital problems with his wife, who also worked for the FBI. The agent was sentenced to prison.

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• Death Aboard Cruise Ship an Accident, Police Say (CBS)
• Digital Detectives Dig through Data Deluge (ABC)
• FBI Says Social Media Sniffing App Will Protect Privacy (PC Mag)
• Sarah Palin Email Hacker Loses Appeal (Reuters)
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The Phoenix FBI has a new home.

A 210,202-square-foot building on N. Seventh Street officially opened Wednesday, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. It was built by Ryan Cos., a Minneapolis-based company.

The paper reported that the building consolidates four previous Phoenix FBI locations.

“With more than double the previous space, the Phoenix employees will benefit from a large stand-alone FBI field office, with many improvements to include tighter security and upgraded technology,” said James Turgal Jr., FBI Special Agent-In-Charge, Phoenix Division, according to the paper.

gov photo

Ex-DEA official and ex-presidential appointee Grayling Williams has been hired to head up internal investigations for the Baltimore Police Department, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The paper reports that Williams spent 22 years with the DEA including a stint in Baltimore. He was also assigned at one point to DEA Headquarters where he served as Chief of the Policy and Source Management Section, managing operational policy development and the confidential informant program, and as the Executive Assistant to the Chief of Operations.

In 2009, President Obama esident Obama to serve as the Director of the Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The paper reported that Williams will have the civilian tite of director and will earn a salary of about $110,000.

By Danny Fenster

Former FBI agent Thomas Raftery is now the Inspector General for the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) for New Jersey and Pennsylvania, reports Fox News. The decision was made at a DRPA meeting on Wednesday, where a former political aide was named the new deputy chief executive officer of the DRPA as well.

Raferty served with the FBI in Afghanistan and investigated the Oklahoma City bombing, according to Fox. His new job, which is also a new position within DRPA, is to try and “clean up the DRPA mess” amid complaints that the organization lacks transparency and engages in patronage, a long held criticism of the DRPA.

To read more click here.

Read press release.

U.S. Atty. Carmen Ortiz

Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney who made headlines as the lead prosecutor in  the case of the infamous crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger and his long-time girlfriend Catherine Greig, has been named “Bostonian of the Year,” by the Boston Globe Magazine, the publication announced in a press release on Friday.

The Globe, which will feature a profile of Ortiz in a special Sunday edition of the paper, called the Attorney “the fighter” due to her “long history prosecuting political corruption cases,” according to the release, beginning with an internship in 1980 with the US Department of Justice’s public integrity unit, where she worked alongside Eric Holder.

“We are excited to honor a woman who has faced, and cleared, many hurdles – she is Boston’s first female and first Hispanic US attorney – as Bostonian of the Year,” Susanne Althoff, editor of The Boston Globe Magazine, said. “Ms. Ortiz’ successful prosecutions of corruption cases have had an indelible impact on the Massachusetts political landscape.”

To read more click here.

By Danny Fenster

A new leader has been named to the nation’s largest uniformed federal law enforcement agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection,  reports the website AllGov.com.

David V. Aguilar has been named the head of  the agency. The move came after after Senate Republicans refused to hold a hearing on President Barack Obama’s nomination, Alan Bersin.

Aguilar has worked on the border for 33 years, according to the news report. As of January 1, 2012, Aguilar now commands more than 20,000 border enforcement officials.

Aguilar joined the Border Patrol in June of 1978, in Laredo, Texas. He was a first line supervisor and then Assistant Patrol Agent in Charge and Patrol Agent in Charge in Laredo. From 1988 to 1996 Aguilar was a Patrol Agent in Charge for three Border Patrol Stations in Texas: Dallas, Rio Grande Valley and Brownsville. He continued moving upward in Texas and Arizona after that.

To read more click here.

By Danny Fenster

Barack Obama has named a new man to head federal law enforcement in the drug trafficking-prone US Virgin Islands, reports the Daily World. Ronald W. Sharpe is the new US Attorney for the District of the Virgin Islands.

Sharpe has deep roots and extended family in the area, according to the Daily World.  ”His mom grew up in Plaisance and he still has a lot of relatives here,” his neice, Grace Thomas Garnier, told the paper.

Sharpe was confirmed by the US Senate after being named for the post by Obama, taking over duties earlier this month. Sharpe is the chief federal law enforcement officer in the region, supervising 41 people, including 16 attorneys, and is responsible for coordinating investigations across multiple agencies and the prosecution of all federal crimes.

To read more click here.

By Danny Fenster

The ATF’s Philadelphia Field Office is about to see some new leadership, reports PR Newswire.

Sheree L. Mixell was named the Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Field Division on Thursday.

The Indiana native began her career as a special agent with ATF in 1990 and has over 23 years of law enforcement experience. For three years,  she served as a member of the Baltimore Field Division Special Response Team, responding to high risk situations and apprehending some of the region’s most violent criminals, according to the report.

She most recently served  as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s Baltimore Field Division, directing and providing oversight for daily investigations for Maryland and Delaware.

To read more click here.

Tom Brandon/atf photo

Thomas E. Brandon, the straight-shooting, well respected and extremely able veteran of ATF, who was sent around the country this year to try and mend some of the agencies pressing problems, has been named ticklethewire.com’s Fed Of The Year for 2011.

Brandon, an ex-Marine who is currently ATF’s number two person in Washington, started the year off as special agent in charge of ATF’s Detroit office, where he was very well respected.

In the spring, after the agency started coming under Congressional fire for Operation Fast and Furious, Brandon was sent off to Phoenix to head up that office and try and improve morale and straighten out matters.

Fast Furious was created in the Phoenix office. Under Fast and Furious, ATF encouraged Arizona gun dealers to sell to straw purchasers, all with the hopes of tracing the weapons to the Mexican cartels.

Problem was, ATF lost track of many of the guns, some of which surfaced at crime scenes on both sides of the border. Some members of Congress like Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Ia) went on the attack, criticizing ATF. Some even suggested folding it into the FBI.

In late August, acting director  Ken Melson stepped down. In October, as part of a major shakeup at the agency,  Brandon was summoned from Phoenix to become the number two guy in Washington.

We think it speaks volumes that Brandon has been sent to the agency’s hotspots to help straighten out things at a time the agency has come under fire, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Waco.  To boot, it’s easy to find street agents who respect Brandon, who has been an agent since 1989.

Brandon is the fourth person to receive the Fed of the Year Award.  Previous recipients have included Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (2008),  Warren Bamford, who headed the Boston FBI (2009) and Joseph Evans, regional director for the DEA’s North and Central Americas Region in Mexico City (2010).

By Danny Fenster

Ralph S. Boelter, after 20 years with the FBI, has been named assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, the bureau said in a statement on Monday.

Boelter began his career at the bureau’s Boston Division in July of 1991, investigating white collar crime, violent crime and criminal enterprise matters, according to the statement.

In March of 2000 he was sent to the Los Angeles Division to supervise the Violent Crime and Criminal Enterprise Branch, later serving as the acting assistant special agent in charge of that branch. In 2005 he helped investigate the unauthorized disclosure of CIA Agent Valeria Plame.

In December of 2006 FBI Director Robert Mueller sent him closer to his native Wisconsin when he was put in charge of the Minneapolis Division, where he managed high-profile cases such as the $3.6 billion Thomas Petters corporate fraud investigation and terrorism investigations of Somali-Americans.

In 2010 Boelter earned the Presidential Rank Award for sustained meritorious performance as a senior executive.