The Albany Times Union reports that Thomas Relford, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Albany field office, has retired.
Relford did not lead the Albany bureau until after the arrest of the Albany-based teacher of ethics and executive successes, Keith Alan Raniere.
Relford is the fourth top FBI agent to depart from the Albany field office since early 2017.
Thomas Relford retired as FBI special agent in charge of the Albany bureau of the FBI.
It is not known if the embarrassment of having the NYC FBI steal their thunder and investigate their hometown Vanguard had anything to do with the bureau’s inability to find anybody to stick to the job.
Relford became agent in charge in May 2020, almost a year after Raniere’s conviction, and it would be unfair to pin any blame on his leadership for a failure often laid at the doorstep of this bureau – that of not investigating the man who informed his followers and anyone else who might believe him that he was the world’s smartest man – and his allies, who pranced about the Capitol Region allegedly committing crimes two-by-two and not paying for a single one.
Though Raniere was headquartered in their district, the Albany bureau never could get around to pinning anything on him and it was the NYC FBI that finally put the hammer down on the Vanguard, leader of a movement meant to awaken humanity and create a more noble civilization.
Relford, 52, who is from Missouri, completed 25 years with the FBI.
“I’m incredibly proud of my 25-year career with the FBI, and especially lucky to end it on such a high note as the head of the Albany field office,” Relford said in a statement.
According to the Times Union, “Relford came to Albany from Washington, D.C., where he was in the FBI’s inspector division. He had previously served as the assistant special agent in charge – second in command – of the FBI’s Kansas City office. His previous FBI assignments included New Orleans and stints in the West African nation of Senegal and Nairobi, Kenya, two of the 60 foreign locations where the bureau has a presence.
“Relford took over an office in Albany which covers 32 upstate counties – including the entire Capital Region – and the state of Vermont. In an interview last fall, Relford told the Times Union his priorities included terrorism and counterintelligence, violent gangs and public corruption but that at the time, his office’s immediate top concern was a ‘safe and secure election.’
“‘My work has taken me all over the world, but I truly believe I was meant to spend this last year serving the amazing people of the Capital Region, Central New York, Upstate New York, the Southern Tier and Vermont,’ Relford said.
James N. Hendricks, former special agent-in-charge of the FBI Albany Field Office (Photo John Carl D’Annibale Times Union)
Relford’s predecessor was James Hendricks, who was the subject of several stories in Frank Report.
Ousted FBI Agent in Charge at FBI Albany – James Hendricks – Is There More to the Story?
Investigative reporter and senior editor Brendan Lyons for the Times Union broke the story that an FBI internal investigation found that Hendricks sexually harassed eight subordinate employees and created a hostile work environment for another employee with whom he had a relationship.
Some readers thought that maybe Hendricks did not go after Raniere because he was a kindred spirit. But even that notion doesn’t hold up. This allegedly randy FBI agent was not appointed to be in charge of FBI Albany until July 2018 – after Raniere was arrested.
Hendricks seems to have argued that he was innocent and that the people who alleged harassment conspired against him to successfully oust him. All Hendricks wanted to do, he said, was instill the efficiency and good investigative skills that he believed the bureau was capable of.
Hendricks was keenly aware of the embarrassment of the bureau after the Raniere indictment coming out of NYC.
Keith Raniere is led away in handcuffs on March 26, 2018 in Mexico.
As top agent, Hendricks followed Janelle Miller, who followed Vadim Thomas, who followed Andrew Vale, who held the position for more than three years and, though he may not have done anything to slow down Raniere and his operations, Vale was able to leave Albany and be promoted to a higher position in the FBI.
Raniere’s Supporter’s View
This failure or success, if you prefer, of the Albany bureau gives us a chance to raise a fairly interesting point made by supporters of Raniere:
The Albany bureau received numerous complaints of criminality against Raniere and NXIVM over the years – from Kristin Keeffe to Barbara Bouchey to Joe O’Hara and others before that – and they never charged him with a single crime, not even a misdemeanor.
This means Raniere is innocent, his supporters say.
His supporters say that the FBI NYC did a foul deed upon him and created crimes where none existed and the proof is that the local bureau in Albany, whose responsibility it truly is to investigate potential criminal deeds done on their turf, failed to do so – not through incompetence but through lack of evidence of criminality.
NYC, operating under someone’s strings – be it the Illuminati or other foul and perfervid interests – wanted Raniere out of the way – and so they did whatever it took to get the job done.
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As for who is in charge now – in Albany – the answer is no one locally and that the bureau is being overseen from DC until a new special FBI agent in charge is named.
As for who is in charge of Raniere – the warden at USP Tucson is. He or she is an individual whose name is not readily available from an online search [If anybody can find this somehow secretive information, please share it] but who arguably does have a higher IQ than Raniere for he or she managed to get a higher rank on the stripe path than Raniere.
Warden [right] talks to students on the stripe path.
As for who is in charge of the NYC Field Office of the FBI, if we believe Raniere was unjustly accused and is an innocent man convicted, it may be the Illuminati after all.
For these dark and shadowy leaders of the new world-order knew for years that Raniere was a formidable foe, a man whose brain could set off radar detectors, make computers go haywire, unleash the snows from the heavens when he concocted a new module for an intensive, and make rain know enough to fall on sinners and avoid the saint. They knew he must be stopped before he made the world a kind and loving civilization where all women would be branded equally and no one’s collateral would ever be released unless it was truly necessary to do so.
Raniere supporters have suggested in the past, and their thoughts echoed their leader’s, that the Illuminati had it out for Raniere and marked him for the day of his destiny.
Young Keith Raniere.
For those who think that Raniere was guilty as sin – and that the FBI did good investigative work in getting the evidence to stop him from committing further atrocities – the special agent in charge of the New York Field Office is Michael J. Driscoll.
Michael Driscoll resists the notion that his office is run by the Illuminati. But, as certain Raniere followers argue – what else would he say?
