Exclusive: FBI Names James C. Barnacle Jr. New Head of New York City Field Office

The FBI has named the special agent in charge of the Charlotte field office, James C. Barnacle Jr., as its assistant director in charge of the New York City field office, the New York Sun has learned. Mr. Barnacle, a 20-year veteran of the bureau, according to his LinkedIn profile, is replacing Christopher Raia, who left the New York office in January to become co-deputy director under FBI Director Kash Patel. Mr. Barnacle becomes the second head of the FBI’s New York field office in just under a year, following the forced retirement of James Dennehy, who pushed back against the Trump administration’s efforts to identify agents who worked on the January 6th investigation. An FBI spokesman confirmed Mr. Barnacle’s new role but did not respond to questions from the Sun by press time.Prior to his promotion, Mr. Barnacle was the Charlotte field office’s special agent in charge since May 2025, where his office recently disrupted what authorities called an ISIS-style New Year’s Eve attack in Mint Hill, North Carolina. In January, the FBI arrested Christian Sturdivant, 18, for allegedly planning to commit a mass-casualty attack using hammers and knives at a local grocery store and fast food restaurant on December 31, 2025, in support of ISIS.That same month, Mr. Barnacle’s office announced the arrest of Alejandro Rosales Castillo, an FBI Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitive who was wanted for the 2016 murder of a 23-year old woman whom he’d previously dated, authorities said.Mr. Barnacle’s predecessor, Mr. Raia, was elevated to the role under similar circumstances — he took command of the investigation into another ISIS-inspired New Year’s attack in New Orleans’ French Quarter in 2024 that killed 14 people after a New Orleans official initially misidentified it as “not a terrorist attack.” In April, Mr. Raia was promoted to run the FBI’s New York City field office, the bureau’s largest of its 56 field offices, two months after Mr. Dennehy was forced into early retirement. In an internal memo, Mr. Dennehy said that he was “not given a reason” for his dismissal. He had run afoul of Justice official Emil Bove – a former criminal defense attorney for Mr. Trump who was then acting deputy attorney general – for pushing back at a 12-question survey, sent to thousands of agents, asking about their role, if any, in the investigation into the January 6 riot at the Capitol.“Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy,” he wrote in an internal memo.Mr. Raia was named co-deputy director in January, replacing former NYPD cop and media personality Daniel Bongino, who served just 10 months in the role before his resignation. He has since returned to hosting his podcast, “The Dan Bongino Show.”

Exclusive: FBI Names James C. Barnacle Jr. New Head of New York City Field Office

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