The People at DEA

Last Updated: Tuesday November 23, 2021

Administrator Anne Milgram

Anne Milgram was sworn in as DEA Administrator on June 28, 2021, after being confirmed by the United States Senate by unanimous consent on June 24, 2021. As Administrator, she leads an agency of more than 10,000 public servants—including nearly 5,000 Special Agents and 800 Intelligence Analysts—who work in 239 offices across the United States and 91 foreign offices located in 69 countries.  

Prior to assuming her duties at the DEA, Milgram served as New Jersey’s Attorney General from 2007 to 2010. In that role, Milgram was New Jersey’s chief law enforcement officer, led the 9,000-person Department of Law & Public Safety, and had oversight responsibility for state and county prosecutors and more than 30,000 local law enforcement officers. During her tenure as Attorney General, Milgram also oversaw, and significantly reformed, the Camden Police Department, which today is viewed as a model for effective, data-driven policing. Most recently, she served as a Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law where she developed programs to reform the criminal justice system through data, analytics, and technology.

Milgram began her legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. She then served as a federal prosecutor in the United States Department of Justice, where she was the Special Litigation Counsel for the prosecution of human trafficking crimes. Milgram was awarded the Department of Justice Commendation for Outstanding Service and the Department of Justice Director’s Award for her work.

After graduating summa cum laude from Rutgers University, Milgram received a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge and a law degree from New York University School of Law. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Anne E. Thompson of the District Court for the District of New Jersey.  

 

Anne Milgram
Lou Milione

Principal Deputy Administrator Louis J. Milione

Louis J. Milione was appointed as DEA Principal Deputy Administrator on August 1, 2021.  Milione serves as the principal assistant to the DEA Administrator, leading an agency of more than 10,000 public servants—including nearly 5,000 Special Agents and 800 Intelligence Analysts—who work in 239 offices across the United States and 91 foreign offices located in 69 countries.  Prior to his appointment, he worked in the private sector for four years between 2017 and 2021.

In 2017, Milione completed a 20-year career with DEA, culminating in his assignment as the Assistant Administrator, Diversion Control Division from 2015 to 2017, where he oversaw all matters related to DEA’s mission of regulating more than 1.6 million DEA registrants across the entire pharmaceutical supply chain.  He also spearheaded DEA’s domestic and international efforts to prevent, detect and investigate the diversion of pharmaceutical controlled substances.

Milione began his career with DEA in 1997 as a Special Agent in the New York Division office.  His other assignments included being a founding member and eventual Assistant Special Agent in Charge of DEA Special Operation Division's Bilateral Investigations Unit.  There he planned and executed high risk investigations involving multi-tier criminal networks, high-level transnational criminals, and corrupt foreign officials. For more than a decade, Milione and his teams operated throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central America, and Europe, conducting some of the Justice Department’s most sensitive and significant criminal investigations.

He is a graduate of Villanova University and holds a Juris Doctorate from the Rutgers School of Law.

 

Dawn Mathis, Public Affairs Specialist, Houston Field Division

I began my career 24 years ago as a Diversion Investigator in Houston, Texas. As a Public Affairs Specialist (Demand Reduction Coordinator), I am required to educate the public as to the current drug trends and the dangers of drug abuse within our communities. I also host the Annual Community Awareness Conference, Prescription Drug Abuse Conference on College Campuses, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena Red Ribbon Rally, Candlelight Vigil and Community Stars Program.

After speaking to thousands of parents across the State of Texas for the past 15 years, I’ve observed that all parents are troubled by the possibility of drugs threatening their families. From my experience I’ve also learned that parents are eager to be educated and informed of the current drugs of abuse that are relative to their demographics. During my presentations I’m often approached for advice on how to prevent children from using drugs.

Here are a few tips I’ve gathered along the way.

  • Know their friends.
  • Know where they are at all times, and don’t be afraid to check your child’s room, cell phone or belongings.
  • Have dinner with your kids.
  • Be vigilant in keeping their kids away from drugs.
  • Set their standards high and refuse to reflect and share with their kids their past drug use.
  • Do not waiver in your expectations of your kids. If you accept drug use, they will have no problem living up to those expectations.

 

Dawn Matthis
chuvalotruesdale

Chuvalo Truesdell, Special Agent, Public Information Officer, Atlanta Field Division

I have given hundreds of drug education presentations to a wide variety of parents and school-aged children. Whether the parental group was inner-city or affluent, the message was always the same. I began each presentation with a video clip of a young boy (10-12 years of age) sitting on his bed listening to music. His father approaches him and presents a box, the size of a cigar box and asks where he got the box. The boy tries to reply and the father interrupts him and asks him where he learned about this stuff. The boy replied that he learned it by watching him. The video narrator says, “Parents who use drugs have kids who use drugs.” This is so true. I always remind parents that they cannot condone drinking or smoking at home because they are giving their consent for their children to model this behavior outside of the home.

In addition, parents often ask me when they should start talking to my child about drug use. This conversation should occur when the child is between the end of 3rd and early 4th grade. I stress to parents they should be educated about the signs and symptoms (behavioral & psychological) of drug use in case their children are experimenting with drugs. Without this knowledge how can they identify a problem?

Also, I share with children and parents the inevitable reality that some day (sooner or later) someone, possibly a friend or a family member, is going to offer their kids drugs. I make it clear that my older brother offered me marijuana on countless occasions, but I always said no. I was never close to saying yes, because I was comfortable with whom I was. I had already made a strong commitment to say no, regardless of who offered it.

In closing, statistics say that if a parent is successful in keeping their kid drug-free until around the age of 16, then that kid is more likely to be drug-free for a lifetime. Therefore, the parents should be up to the challenge of communicating these truths about the dangers of drug use with their children. Thus, they will have more successes than failures in keeping their children drug free.