Los Angeles, California - Director James B. Comey has named Stephen Woolery the SAC of the Counterterrorism Division in Los Angeles. Mr. Woolery most recently served as chief of the National Security Branch (NSB) Executive Staff Section, where he served as the chief of staff for the NSB’s Executive Assistant Director.
Mr. Woolery began his career as a special agent in 1999. He was first assigned to the San Antonio Division, where he investigated violent gang criminal enterprise. He led multiple wiretap investigations that culminated in the seizure of more than one million dollars in cash drug proceeds and the conviction of numerous gang members and felony drug offenders. Mr. Woolery also investigated international and domestic terrorism matters.
In 2005, Mr. Woolery was promoted to the position of supervisory special agent assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division, Safe Streets Gang Unit at FBIHQ. In this role, he supervised numerous violent criminal gang investigations across approximately 28 Safe Streets Task Forces throughout the Midwest region of the United States in support of the FBI’s National Gang Strategy.
In 2007, Mr. Woolery was assigned to the Albuquerque Division as a Safe Streets Gang Task Force squad supervisor. In this role he led agents, detectives, and intelligence analysts who investigated drug and violent crime cases against elements of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel and neighborhood-based gangs who operated with impunity on the streets of Albuquerque. Mr. Woolery’s efforts also resulted in the creation of two additional Safe Streets Task Forces in Albuquerque and Farmington, New Mexico. Mr. Woolery returned to FBIHQ in 2009 to the Directorate of Intelligence, where he earned Joint Duty Certification as a senior adviser on detail to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Human Intelligence Office, where he worked closely with other members of the U.S. Intelligence Community to improve human intelligence collection across the community.
In 2010, Mr. Woolery was assigned to the Counterterrorism Division as an assistant section chief in the Exploitation Threat Section. In this role he led efforts to standardize the electronic submission of threat reports with a potential nexus to terrorism from state and local police partners to the FBI’s 104 Joint Terrorism Task Forces. In 2012, Mr. Woolery was selected as assistant special agent in charge for Counterterrorism in the New York Office with oversight of all threat response components for the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Woolery served as a police officer and detective with the Decatur Illinois Police Department. He earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from the University of Illinois-Springfield and a master’s degree in political science from the Illinois State University.
