Ex-Chief of L.A. FBI Named State Security Director

One day after retiring as head of the FBI’s Los Angeles division, Ronald L. Iden has been appointed the state’s new director of homeland security, law enforcement sources said Monday.

The 25-year FBI veteran will succeed George Vinson, who recently retired as the first chief of the state Office of Homeland Security. Neither Iden nor the governor’s office returned calls for comment.

For the last two years, Iden directed the FBI’s third-largest field office, taking over the job two weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

With more than 1,100 employees, 670 of them agents, the Los Angeles FBI division dwarfs the state agency that Iden will head, in terms of employees.

Iden, 56, had announced several months ago that he would retire from the FBI to direct security operations for a health-care provider based in Ventura County. But he recently changed plans after being approached about the state post, sources said.

Although Iden is not widely known outside of law enforcement, one Sacramento official aware of the appointment said Monday that the longtime FBI agent is respected among others in federal and state criminal justice circles.

“He brings a lot of credibility with him,” the official said.

Before being appointed head of the Los Angeles FBI office, Iden served as one of three special agents in charge of the division, overseeing investigations into financial crimes, terrorism, foreign counterintelligence and civil rights violations. From 1992 to 1996, he was assistant director of the office, supervising all of its probes into violent crimes.

A native of Chicago, Iden joined the FBI in 1978 after 10 years with the Elk Grove, Ill., Police Department.

In 1979, he investigated the assassination of a federal judge and the attempted slaying of a federal prosecutor in San Antonio.

Five years later, assigned to the FBI’s office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Iden supervised an investigation into a $7-million armored car robbery in Connecticut by a Puerto Rican group. The probe led to the indictment of 17 people.

In 1990, working at the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., he supervised its investigations of other assassination cases. Those led to convictions for the bombing deaths of a federal judge in Birmingham, Ala., and a civil rights attorney in Savannah, Ga.

At FBI headquarters, Iden also served as chief of the public corruption unit and of the information resources division, where he was responsible for upgrading the bureau’s technology worldwide.