Daphne Hearn Named Intelligence Division Special Agent in Charge for FBI Los Angeles

Director Robert S. Mueller, III has appointed Daphne Hearn special agent in charge for the FBI’s Intelligence Division in Los Angeles. Most recently, Ms. Hearn served as special assistant to Director Mueller at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Hearn entered on duty as a special agent with the FBI in December 1991. Upon completion of training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, she was assigned to the Buffalo Division, where she worked a variety of programs, including the initiation of an organized crime investigation into a large-scale, international illegal gambling operation with ties to La Cosa Nostra (LCN) families in several cities. In May 1998, she was transferred to the Chicago Division, where she worked on the Organized Crime Task Force investigating the LCN's long-term control over the town of Cicero, Illinois.

In late 1999, Ms. Hearn was promoted to the Organized Crime Section of the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters. While there, she managed a national LCN initiative involving 25 of the FBI's 56 field offices. In May 2002, Ms. Hearn began a 14-month assignment as an assistant inspector with the Office of Inspections, where she led teams during inspections of FBI field divisions, Headquarters divisions, and overseas legal attaché offices.

She was promoted to the position of supervisory special agent in the Kansas City Division in August 2003, where she supervised the Special Operations Group, the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (HARCFL), and the Cyber Crime Task Force (CCTF). The HARCFL and the CCTF consisted of 25 special agents, task force officers, and support personnel from 11 different agencies.

In November 2005, Ms. Hearn was selected to serve as the assistant section chief in the International Operations Division, where she successfully managed all administrative aspects of the FBI Headquarters country-specific units, and including, at that time, the 59 legal attaché offices and 14 sub-offices that provide an FBI presence around the world.

Ms. Hearn was promoted to assistant special agent in charge (ASAC) of the Investigative Services Branch at the Washington Field Office in September 2007. As ASAC, she managed all field office mission-critical support components, including aviation, surveillance, undercover backstopping efforts, and technical assets. In October 2008, she was named special assistant to Director Mueller. As a special assistant, Ms. Hearn consulted with the FBI’s executive management to assist Director Mueller in his daily operational and administrative oversight of the FBI.

Ms. Hearn was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Kansas in 1987. Prior to entering on duty with the FBI, she was employed by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company as an area manager in the Topeka, Kansas manufacturing facility, and later as an account manager with the NCR Corporation in Denver, Colorado.