Special Agent Whittle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, graduated in 1989 summa cum laude from DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, and received her law degree in 1992 from Wake Forest University,Winston-Salem, North Carolina. From 1992 – 1995, Ms. Whittle was a trial attorney in private practice in Charlottesville, Virginia, representing law enforcement agencies in civil lawsuits. From 1995-1997 she served as an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Felony Appeals and Capitol Litigation Division.
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Special Agent Whittle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, graduated in 1989 summa cum laude from DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, and received her law degree in 1992 from Wake Forest University,Winston-Salem, North Carolina. From 1992 – 1995, Ms. Whittle was a trial attorney in private practice in Charlottesville, Virginia, representing law enforcement agencies in civil lawsuits. From 1995-1997 she served as an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Felony Appeals and Capitol Litigation Division.
Ms. Whittle joined the FBI as a Special Agent in September 1997 and was assigned to the New York Field Office, where she was a member of Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) until 2015. She served on an extraterritorial squad which focused on international terrorist organizations, including Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Ms. Whittle undertook numerous temporary duty assignments abroad to conduct joint investigations with foreign partners in Europe and Africa. She was a member of the investigative teams for the 1998 East Africa Embassy attacks, the 9/11 attacks, the attempted bombing of Times Square, the plot to bomb JFK International Airport, the World Cup bombings in Kampala, Uganda, the attack on the US Consulate Benghazi, and multiple incidents of Somali piracy. She is a certified counter-terrorism subject matter expert and instructor for the FBI and has taught at the International Law Enforcement Academies. Ms. Whittle received two Attorney General’s Awards for Excellence, the Director of National Intelligence’s Meritorious Unit Award, and a Medal of Excellence while assigned to the New York JTTF.
Ms. Whittle joined the New York Evidence Response Team (ERT) as a collateral duty in 2005 and served as Team Leader from 2009 – 2015. She was frequently called upon to document major international crime scenes and collect evidence. From 2015 to 2017, she served full-time as the New York ERT Senior Team Leader, managing the largest and busiest ERT team as they responded to major crime scenes throughout the United States, assisted in the execution of search warrants, deployed globally on international terrorism cases, and supported special events of national significance. She is a certified forensics instructor who has taught globally. Ms. Whittle received the 2016 FBI Director’s Award in her role as ERT Senior Team Leader.
Ms. Whittle transferred to FBI Headquarters in 2017 as a Supervisory Special Agent in the Middle East Unit, International Operations Division, serving as program manager for FBI Legal Attaché Offices. In 2020, she received the FBI Director’s Award for her role managing a multi-year project to obtain criminal records and biometric data from Iraqi partners, which identified numerous previously unknown terrorism suspects, including individuals who had emigrated to the US and other western countries. She also received a 2022 Medal of Excellence for managing crisis situations, including evacuation of FBI personnel from rapidly deteriorating war zone locales.
From 2022 through 2024, she served in the Counterterrorism Division as a Supervisory Special Agent detailed to an intelligence agency partner to coordinate foreign counterterrorism efforts.
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