FBI Names New Head of L.A. Office

James V. DeSarno Jr., who oversaw FBI agents investigating fund-raising abuses in the 1996 presidential campaign, has been picked to head the bureau’s Los Angeles field office.

DeSarno, 52, said he will assume his new duties in mid-August.

In 1997, DeSarno and Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles G. Labella of San Diego were brought in to revitalize the Justice Department’s campaign finance task force, under fire from congressional critics who contended that the probe was being mismanaged.

After several months, however, both men departed the task force with DeSarno returning to West Virginia to head the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, where he now is assigned.

Before leaving the task force, Labella and DeSarno drafted a lengthy memo urging Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to turn over the probe to an independent counsel. Reno declined to do so.

The attorney general’s congressional critics focused on the memo to renew their charges that Reno was dragging her feet to protect the Clinton administration.

As chief of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, DeSarno will hold the rank of assistant FBI director, one of 13 in the agency. He will supervise about 690 agents and 435 support staff.

DeSarno, who holds a master’s degree in psychology, joined the FBI in 1976 and has held a variety of supervisory posts in Washington, Philadelphia and New Orleans.

In New Orleans, he oversaw major public corruption investigations, including a probe that led to the indictment of former Louisiana Gov. Edwin W. Edwards on charges of extorting millions of dollars in exchange for riverfront gambling casino licenses.

DeSarno also served as assistant chief of the FBI civil rights section in 1988.

In his current post, he supervises the FBI’s national repository of fingerprints and criminal history records.

DeSarno succeeds Timothy P. McNally, who retired last month to become security chief at the Hong Kong Jockey Club, a nonprofit institution in the former British colony that runs the island’s only two racetracks and lottery.