Month: August 2021

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News (b)

Director Christopher Wray has named Cathy L. Milhoan as the new assistant director of the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs. She has served as the director of communications for the U.S. Secret Service since 2016, running the agency’s public affairs program.

Ms. Milhoan’s appointment as assistant director of OPA marks her return to the FBI. She worked at the FBI for more than five years beginning in 2004, including as a national spokesperson. She also designed and led the FBI’s Media Training for Executives program and has trained international law enforcement executives in media and crisis communications.

She left the FBI in 2010 to serve as the deputy assistant director of the Office of Public Affairs at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At ICE, Ms. Milhoan was responsible for daily operations of the Office of Public Affairs and managed the administrative and strategic communications branches.

In 2013, Ms. Milhoan was named the director of DoD Production at the Defense Media Activity at Fort Meade in Maryland. The DMA provides news, information, and entertainment to U.S. forces around the globe.

Prior to joining the federal government, Ms. Milhoan was a journalist for several newspapers in Delaware and North Carolina.

Ms. Milhoan retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve in 2018 after serving in a variety of public affairs and leadership assignments, including chief of public affairs for the Reserve Wing at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, as a squadron commander, and as a spokesperson for the secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science and a master’s in administration of justice from Wilmington University.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News (b)

Director Christopher Wray has named Joseph Gonzalez as the special agent in charge of the San Juan Field Office in Puerto Rico. Mr. Gonzalez most recently served as the FBI’s legal attaché in Mexico City.

Mr. Gonzalez began his FBI career as a special agent in 2003 and reported to the New York Field Office to investigate white-collar crime. He was also a member of New York’s Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team and its Rapid Deployment Team.

In 2006, Mr. Gonzalez transferred to the San Juan Field Office for the first of several assignments in the office. He initially investigated organized crime, international drug trafficking and money laundering, and violent gangs. He was also a crisis negotiator and a crisis management coordinator. Mr. Gonzalez was promoted in 2011 to supervisory special agent of San Juan’s Criminal Enterprise Squad and served as the coordinator for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. In 2012, he became supervisor of the Public Corruption/Civil Rights squad, which was responsible for dismantling networks of corrupt law enforcement officers throughout Puerto Rico.

Mr. Gonzalez was named chief of the Public Corruption Unit in the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington in 2014. He also served as the acting section chief of the Public Corruption Civil Rights Section.

In 2016, Mr. Gonzalez was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Special Operations Branch of the Newark Field Office in New Jersey. As an ASAC, he had oversight of surveillance and aviation operations, human intelligence, security, language services, the undercover program, and several other programs.

Mr. Gonzalez was promoted in 2017 to chief of the Operational Support Section in the International Operations Division at Headquarters, where he had oversight of several units. He was appointed legal attaché in Mexico City in 2018, serving as the primary liaison to the FBI’s Mexican counterparts.

Prior to working for the FBI, Mr. Gonzalez was a certified public accountant. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University in 1999.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News (b)

ST. LOUIS, MO—Special Agent in Charge Richard Quinn of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) St. Louis Division announces Ricardo Rusan, 55, was captured in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after two years on the run.

Rusan was believed to be living in the area of Portland, Oregon. A detective with the Hillsboro Police Department, outside of Portland, recognized Rusan from the FBI Wanted Poster that was circulated among law enforcement. The FBI was then able to track Rusan traveling to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where FBI agents arrested him without incident on July 29, 2021.

Rusan is charged federally with robbing a bank in Clayton, Missouri, on April 16, 2019, and a second bank in St. Peters, Missouri, on April 18, 2019. He lived in St. Louis County at the time of the two bank robberies.

Thank you to the FBI Portland Division and Hillsboro (Oregon) Police Department for their assistance, as well as the Sioux Falls Resident Agency of the FBI Minneapolis Division.