Biography

About
Gregory D. Lee was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in the suburb of Rosemead, which is south of Pasadena. He attended San Gabriel High School, where he graduated in 1971. He was biding his time, waiting to turn 21 so he could apply to be a police officer, when the 1972 draft lottery numbers during the Vietnam War were drawn. His birthday was number one. He immediately enlisted in the army as a Military Policeman and the day he graduated from MP school, the Paris Peace Accords were signed and President Nixon ended the draft. Draftees were inducted up to number 20, so he would have been drafted, regardless. After initially being stationed at Ft. Bragg (now Ft. Liberty) NC, Greg later became an army CID agent (Criminal Investigator) while assigned as a Military Police Investigator in Darmstadt, Germany. When his Germany tour ended in 1977, he was promoted to Warrant Officer at his next duty station, which was Fort Ord, California. He left active duty in 1980 as a Chief Warrant Officer 2, and became a police officer in Salinas, California, which is in Monterey County. However, he remained in the Army Reserve. He completed 40-years of active duty and reserve service, retiring in 2012 as a Chief Warrant Officer 5. Greg left the Salinas Police Department in 1981 and transferred to the Pasadena PD when his wife, Virginia, had a job offer in Los Angeles. In December 1983, he accepted a special agent position with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and served in Los Angeles, Monterey, California, DEA Office of Training at the FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, Islamabad, Pakistan and was the Resident Agent in Charge of DEA's Karachi, Pakistan office. Greg was then transferred back to DEA's Los Angeles Division, where he was a group supervisor at the Orange County resident office. He later was brought back to the L.A. office to serve as the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces coordinator. He retired from DEA in December, 2003. While assigned to Islamabad, Greg was a member of the team that captured Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 New York City World Trade Center bombing. Yousef was the world's most wanted terrorist at the time. Greg collected critical evidence of Yousef's planning the Bojinka Files terrorist plot in which Yousef and others conspired to plant bombs on, and simultaneously blow up, 12 U.S. domestic airliners over the Pacific Ocean. Greg testified at his trial, in which Yousef represented himself. Between his careers as a DEA/CID agent, he has traveled to over 70-countries on investigations, training assignments, and personal travel.

Gregory D. Lee
Ninety Kilograms of Cocaine and Two Million Dollars Seized During Undercover Operation in Los Angeles County 1987.
About

Career Army Reserve Officer

Greg retired as a Senior Field Grade Chief Warrant Officer 5 in 2012. He achieved the highest rank obtainable as a CWO and completed a combined 40-years of active duty and reserve service. When he was 58 years old, his last tour of duty was a one year active duty special assignment to the Special Operations Command Europe to be its law enforcement subject matter expert. Between February - April, 2011, he was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, to assess the "Rule of Law" phase of General David H. Petraeus' counter-insurgency strategy for the J2 (Joint Intelligence) section of the Command. Upon returning to Europe, he created a comprehensive training program for special forces operators and taught "Evidence Based" operations at NATO Headquarters in Belgium.

Expert Witness and Criminal Justice Consultant 2004 - 2024
Shortly after retirement from DEA, Greg authored three Criminal Justice textbooks. He soon was sought after in the legal community to evaluate criminal and civil cases and opine on police procedures. He is a State and Federal qualified expert witness. He is winding down his practice to devote more time to writing.