D.A. Names Ex-FBI Chief to Head Investigations Unit

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury announced Tuesday the hiring of former local FBI chief Gary Auer to head the prosecutor’s 56-officer Bureau of Investigations.

Auer, 52, was chosen to succeed Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Bennett, who now directs the district attorney’s large child support and administrative divisions. The appointment is effective March 1. “Gary is absolutely one of the best,” Bradbury said. “He’s highly respected among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. He has extraordinary investigative and management experience. He’s a terrific guy.” Auer said he is just grateful to be back in law enforcement after less than nine months at an international investigative firm based in Westlake. After 27 years in law enforcement, the intense federal cop from Thousand Oaks retired last May to collect an FBI pension and seek out cheats within America’s top companies for the private Emerald Group.

But he quickly discovered that he missed the life of a government investigator.

“This gives me the opportunity to get up in the morning and contribute to something larger than myself,” Auer said. “It was something the FBI offered me and now the district attorney has given me a second chance.” Auer said he was so happy to be back he didn’t even ask about his salary.

His starting salary is $82,000 annually, Bradbury said. He will head up a unit of 56 investigators and 20 investigative assistants--which is larger than two police departments in the county. Auer’s FBI experience in white-collar investigations and murders associated with bank robberies will serve him well in an office that prosecutes not only violent crimes but major frauds and political corruption, Bradbury said. “He is no stranger to any aspect of our work except probably child support,” Bradbury said. “And he can get up to speed very quickly.”

Technically, Auer is classified a political appointment who serves at the will of Bradbury, instead of a peace officer or deputy district attorney. That is because Auer, although a lawyer, has not passed the State Bar of California. And he has always been a federal investigator, so he has not passed the state’s peace officers training courses.

In Auer, Bradbury gets a top investigator who worked as a Soviet spy catcher, then spent his final decade with the FBI hounding white-collar criminals in Ventura County.

Auer shifted the focus of the FBI’s small Ventura County office from violence and drug deals to crooks whose crimes take place behind closed doors--corruption at banks and savings and loans, environmental destruction, and fraud by giant defense contractors who ended up paying tens of millions of dollars in fines.

Here, he also cooperated with local police agencies to such a degree that his presence made a big difference, prosecutors and police chiefs said.

“If all federal agencies got along as well with local jurisdictions as Gary and his group, you wouldn’t read stories about [conflicts],” former Sheriff Larry Carpenter said last year.

Bradbury, who tried to recruit Auer then too, said federal agencies don’t usually get credit for making communities safer, but Auer should.

“Gary made a difference,” Bradbury said. “He has such a deep commitment to this community that he always went the extra 10 miles.”