FBI Chicago Special-Agent-in-Charge Doug DePodesta talks triumphs, challenges
Doug DePodesta's first days atop the FBI Chicago Field Office were during last year's security-heavy Democratic National Convention.
The FBI in Chicago has been busy in the months since. Just Tuesday of this week, DePodesta's team ran point on a nine-hour standoff at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Meanwhile, the FBI is rolling out a program to double down on the drop in violent crime in Chicago — known as Operation Summer Heat.
"We are surging additional resources, bodies, to arrest fugitives, to redouble our efforts in carjackings," DePodesta said.
DePodesta took over as special agent-in-charge at the FBI Chicago Field Office in early August 2024 — coming up on a year ago. Partnerships between police agencies are what he thinks is behind the 30% drop in homicides in Chicago, the 40% drop in gun violence, and 50% drop in carjackings since last year.
"You know, I think it's a lot of things, but I can really point to law enforcement cooperation, engaged with community," DePodesta said. "It's a very complex problem that has a lot of answers."
But why has the number of federal prosecutions in the Chicago area has fallen since the start of President Trump's second administration?
"It's hard to look at stats like that to really get the whole picture. We are looking for more impactful cases," said DePodesta. "So I think one great example is the Mike Madigan case. That took over a decade to investigate, took a lot of effort from my agents — our agents — and also the U.S. Attorney's office. But it had a huge impact in the state and around the country."
While DePodesta has only been in the top post less than a year, he spent years in Chicago working, among other things, on high-profile public corruption cases. He worked on the case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for the FBI, while colleagues built cases against former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and former Chicago alderman and City Council Finance Committee chairman Ed Burke.
Are there more public corruption cases or organized crime cases in the pipeline?
"The FBI has been around 117 years investigating public corruption, organized crime, and I don't see it slowing down any time soon," said DePodesta.
Also showing no signs of a slowdown are foreign bad actors stealing U.S. secrets, who are also a target for the FBI.
"The People's Republic of China has 50-to-1 agents trying to get into our intellectual property as FBI agents try to defend it," said DePodesta.
DePodesta runs the fourth largest FBI field office in the country. A total of 1,000 people report to him.
He is aware of the Washington budget axe.
"We will see what Congress and the president do," DePodesta said. "What I'll tell you is we have not seen a reduction in our personnel here in the Chicago area or our budget at all."
As dollars and priorities shift in Washington, DePodesta — who is originally from Detroit and previously served as a Cincinnati police officer — said he is glad to be back in a city where he logged 15 years as an agent.
"I was scared to come into this office for many, many years," said DePodesta, "and now, I come in every morning."
DePodesta rushed to coordinate effort during Dirksen standoff
"Yesterday morning, I was at a speaking event," DePodesta said. "I got the call, and we had to mobilize our SWAT team, our crisis negotiators down on site to work with the United States Marshals Service."
The U.S. Marshals said a man armed with a knife tried to get past security in the building, but was stopped before he could. As a result, the building was placed on lockdown shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Nine hours later, the suspect would be taken out alive.
That no members of the public were hurt in the incident was a win for DePodesta, whose team helped choreograph the response.
"It was very complex. Anytime we're dealing with a large building, someone trying to hurt themselves within that building, a lot of unknowns, it is complex. But that's what we train for," DePodesta said, "if it's in a house, if it's in a train station, because you never know when something like that is going to happen."
As for what keeps him up at night, DePodesta said lone wolves. In fact, on one night in mid-May, his phone at home started ringing with just such a case unfolding. The case was out of Washington, D.C., but had Chicago roots.
"So I was at home sleeping. It was midnight or so," DePodesta said. "Unfortunately, two Israeli Embassy employees were assassinated."
Two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., Sarah Milgrim, 26, and Yaron Lichinsky, 30, were assassinated outside the D.C. Jewish Museum. The suspect was quickly identified and arrested, and within minutes, the FBI began looking into the background of 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez.
"That subject lived here in Chicago. I got a call. I immediately started talking to our Washington office about what they were experiencing, and what resources we would have to surge here," said DePodesta. "We want to find out everything about that person, what they've done, you know, in the past, who they've talked to, to find out if there are co-conspirators — and that's where we are most concerned about — or any other plans."
The case against Rodriguez is still active, but it appears he had no accomplices. But that middle-of-the-night maneuvering is part of the FBI's job.
