Jeff Cortese

Jeff Cortese was born in California and graduated with a degree in business from Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. After working three years in the financial services industry where he earned his Series 6, 7, and 63 licenses, Cortese joined the United States Capitol Police (USCP) in Washington, D.C. He graduated at the top of his USCP recruitment class and was selected to serve as a special agent on the security detail of the United States Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert. Cortese worked executive protection assignments all across the country for the Speaker’s security detail, including as the lead advance for the Speaker’s visit to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. While with the USCP, he was awarded special honors for graduating number one in his recruitment class and he earned two Commendations and one Unit Citation for his effort protecting the Speaker of the House.

In 2005, Cortese joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a special agent. His first assignment was to a public corruption squad in New Orleans where he also earned a spot on the FBI SWAT team. He was a case agent on investigations that resulted in the convictions of city council members, mayors, lawyers, law enforcement officers, a judge, a parish president, a state film commissioner, and others. He also assisted with a wide range of other public corruption and high priority investigations, including the investigation into serial killer/rapist Ronald Dominique, aka the Bayou Strangler. Cortese was subsequently transferred to Tucson, Arizona where he continued with the FBI SWAT team, but was assigned to the newly formed southwest border violence squad which focused on sicarios (hit men) and bajadores (rip crews). Between New Orleans and Tucson, Cortese earned numerous investigative awards, including the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission Excellence in Law Enforcement Award and the OCDETF Regional Investigative Award.

Cortese was eventually promoted to FBI Headquarters where he became a Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) in the Public Corruption Unit, the FBI’s number one criminal priority program. For approximately ten months of his two year assignment, he served as the Acting Chief of the Public Corruption Unit. After his temporary duty at FBI HQ, he was transferred to San Francisco as a field SSA where he worked for several years. Over the many years at FBI HQ and San Francisco, Cortese traveled regularly to different parts of the world (including Africa, Asia, and Europe) providing public corruption training to hundreds of senior law enforcement officers from dozens of countries.

Following his many years of dedicated public service, Cortese transitioned to the private sector where he accepted a role working in risk management. He received his Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) certifications, and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Louisiana State University Shreveport. Cortese, who is an Associate at the Rutgers Institute on Anti-Corruption Studies, has been published numerous times and has provided extensive onscreen/on-air analysis, for multiple outlets, as a law enforcement analyst and student of corruption.