FBI names new special agent in charge of Chicago field office: sources
BY BECKY SCHLIKERMAN AND NATASHA KORECKI Staff Reporters November 9, 2012 4:40PM
Cory B. Nelson, chief of the FBI’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section, heads up the agency’s San Antonio Division.
Updated: December 11, 2012 6:10AM
There’s a new top FBI agent in Chicago.
Cory B. Nelson has been named the special agent in charge of the Chicago office, law enforcement sources said. Nelson, most recently the deputy assistant director of the Inspection Division in the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., replaces Robert D. Grant, who stepped down from the post in September.
Nelson began his FBI career in 1991 and in recent years served as the special agent in charge in San Antonio and as the chief of the Terrorist Financing Operations Section within the Counterterrorism Division, according to the FBI.
He has served in several cities and was a supervisor in the Colombian/Caribbean Unit of the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI Headquarters and deputy director of the Terrorist Screening Center, according to the FBI.
It was not immediately known when Nelson would take his post, but officials are expected to make a formal announcement next week.
Grant announced his retirement in July. He accepted a job as part of the Walt Disney Co.’s global security team in Los Angeles, according to the FBI.
Grant’s FBI career spanned 29 years, beginning in 1983 and including several different assignments at FBI headquarters.
He took the helm in Chicago, the FBI’s oldest field office, in January 2005.
Grant worked alongside U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald — who retired earlier this year — to head investigations that led to the arrest of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges and the racketeering indictment and conviction of numerous high-ranking members of the Chicago Outfit as part of the “Family Secrets” mob case.
Under Grant’s direction, the FBI also arrested two Chicago men on charges related to the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India.
