LITTLE ROCK — The man who supervised the FBI’s spy-catching operations for almost two years, including the investigation of an Army intelligence analyst accused of passing classified information to WikiLeaks, has been named chief of the FBI’s Arkansas operations, the FBI said Monday.
Randall Coleman began work Monday as the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Little Rock division, which includes satellite offices in Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Hot Springs, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff, Marion, Texarkana and El Dorado.
He had been chief of the counterespionage section at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., since July 2010.
Although he will be responsible for a smaller geographic area, Coleman, 46, said he considers his new job to be “far more important of a position, certainly [in terms of] a community impact.”
He noted that he will be supervising “the entire spectrum of what the FBI is responsible for,” including criminal investigations, counterintelligence and counterterrorism.
And, he said, although he grew up in Marietta, Okla., he was born in Fayetteville.
“This is like coming home,” Coleman said.
FBI spokesman Steve Frazier said Coleman’s move to Arkansas is considered a promotion.
A graduate of East Central Oklahoma State University, Coleman is a “decorated combat veteran” who served as an officer in the U.S. Army for nine years, including deployments to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq for Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, the FBI said in a news release.
As chief of the counterespionage section, Coleman said, he supervised investigations leading to criminal charges against 50 people and involving the loss of about $13 billion to U.S. corporations.
The cases included the investigation of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was arrested in May 2010 in connection with a classified video to WikiLeaks.
Manning is now awaiting trial on charges of passing the video, along with confidential documents and other videos, to the organization, which later published the information on its website.
In Washington, Coleman also testified in front of Congressional intelligence committees and gave briefings to the White House National Security Council.
“It was just a great job to have, and very busy,” Coleman said.
He began working for the FBI in 1997 as a special agent in Kingman, Ariz.
In 2004, he was transferred to the FBI’s San Antonio division, where he was a counterintelligence program coordinator and squad supervisor. He was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of national security programs for the division in 2008.
Coleman’s predecessor in Little Rock, Valerie Parlave, was promoted about a month ago to deputy assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigations division in Washington, D.C., Frazier said.
During her tenure in Little Rock, the FBI participated in drug investigations in Texarkana, El Dorado and Helena-West Helena that led to charges announced in October against more than 200 people, including five police officers in eastern Arkansas.
The Arkansas FBI offices “enjoy a tremendous reputation in the FBI,” Coleman said.
“I just want to be a part of that and to bring and facilitate any successes that I can,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/22/2012