Local FBI chief takes D.C. post

Keith Paul

Thursday, Feb. 14, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

Grant Ashley, the head of the FBI's Las Vegas office, this morning was named the head of the bureau's criminal investigative division in Washington.

Ashley, the special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office, will move to the FBI headquarters to be assistant director in charge of the division. The group investigates crimes such as bank robberies, kidnappings, drug deals, organized crime and other violent offenses, said Terry Hulse, assistant special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office.

"It a very high profile division," Hulse said. "It is a very big division with a wide swath of responsibilities. It will be very challenging, but I know he will do very well and is ready for those challenges."

Hulse, who has been with the FBI's Las Vegas office for about 8 1/2 years, is acting special agent in charge until a permanent one is named. Hulse, former supervisor of the white collar crime unit and drug task force, has been assistant special agent in charge for about nine months.

The criminal investigative division does not handle terrorism or counterterrorism investigations.

Ashley, who has been in Las Vegas for about three years, has been on temporary assignment at FBI headquarters in Washington for the past month, coming up with a program to filter information better to law enforcement departments and elected officials.

"Local law enforcement had been complaining that they had difficulty in getting any information from the FBI, and this was prior to Sept. 11," Hulse said. "He was tasked to put a program together to get that information out better."

The Las Vegas FBI office spent countless hours following up on information after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when it was discovered that several of the terrorist stayed at Southern Nevada motels.

FBI officials were putting together timelines to determine when the terrorists were in Las Vegas and what they were doing here. Officials have always maintained that Las Vegas was not a target.

In June the Las Vegas FBI office took a hit when an FBI security analyst was arrested and charged with selling information from criminal files. The information was then sold to members of organized crime and other criminal targets, according to a federal criminal complaint.

James J. Hill was arrested at the Las Vegas FBI office after an investigation spurred by former FBI agent Mike Levin, who was a Las Vegas private detective. Also arrested in the FBI's secrets-for-sale scandal was an investigator for the Nevada attorney general's office and a warrant officer for the Las Vegas Municipal Court. All four pleaded guilty.

Others were charged in connection with the investigation in New York.