By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
J. Wallace LaPrade, who once led the FBI’s New York Field Office and helped oversee the safe return over several celebrity kidnapping victims, died on July 31 at the age of 89, the New York Times reports.
LaPrade died after a battle with heart disease.
LaPrade was a controversial figure in the bureau and was fired as head of the New York office after being accused of hiding the extent of the bureau’s investigations of radical groups in the 1970s.
Before taking the helm in New York, LaPrade was head of the FBI’s Newark regional headquarters. He served 23 years as a federal agent.
Although LaPrade was credited with being more progressive on civil liberties issues than many in the bureau, he was accused to using aggressive tactics to investigate leftist radicals.
