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Samuel Martinez
Samuel (Sam) C. Martinez served twenty-six years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a special agent. A benefactor of the GI Bill after serving in the US Navy, he graduated from the Univers...view moreSamuel (Sam) C. Martinez served twenty-six years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a special agent. A benefactor of the GI Bill after serving in the US Navy, he graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso with a BBA in accounting before the FBI recruited him.
Over the years, the FBI assigned him to myriad postings in San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Montevideo, Uruguay. He worked cases involving white-collar crime, domestic terrorism, narcotics, foreign counterintelligence and undercover assignments.
He worked on the Patricia Hearst Kidnapping, the Black Panther Party, the FALN - a Puerto Rican terrorist group. In Mexico, he was the FBI case agent and supervisor to the kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique Kiki Camarena. His last assignment was supervising, coordinating and authorizing overseas drug cases with DEA.
The Uruguayan National Police and Minister of Interior selected him as the first FBI agent awarded the position of honorary police officer. He received other commendations and awards from domestic and foreign agencies.
He joined lead plaintiff Mat Perez and 310 other Hispanic agents in filing a class action lawsuit on employment discrimination against the FBI. The lawsuit was not about hatred or bigotry but subtle and unintentional discrimination which became evil when management retaliated against those investigative agents it relied on for its success. The court ordered systems implemented after the trial benefitted the FBI with greater opportunities for all agents and transparency in the promotion policies where the FBI promoted women at an unprecedented rate.
After retiring from the FBI, he served as a security consultant and had a successful career in real estate. He has been a Coral Gables resident for five years serving on the City’s Emergency Management Committee and the Coral Gables Anti-Crime Board. He is a volunteer propagating orchids for the Million Orchid Project at the Fairchild Tropical Gardens Orchid Lab in Miami. He is the author of Systemic Evil: Mat Perez v. the FBI and plans to write books on less serious subjects. The book won the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association.view less