In 1999, Robert J. Pickell was sworn in as Sheriff of Genesee County.
Sheriff Pickell has over thirty-five years
of experience in the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice System, and five and
one-half years of experience in the Central Intelligence Agency with worldwide
work experience.
Early in his career, he was a teacher at
Holy Redeemer High School. From 1965 through 1967, he was a City of Flint
Police Officer on special assignment to the Genesee County Prosecutor’s Office,
and received a Professional Excellence Award from the Flint Police Department.
He retired from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in 1989. At that time, he
moved to Langley, Virginia, to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. He
received the CIA Exceptional Performance Awards in 1991, 1992, and 1993. In
1993, he was selected by the CIA to attend the ADVANCED STUDIES Program
sponsored by the VBI and the University of Virginia.
While in the CIA, Sheriff Pickell exposed a
New York State Police corruption case involving numerous troopers, which was
profiled on “60 Minutes”, “Inside Edition”, and “Hard Copy”, and was the subject
of the book, Good Cop, Bad Cop, by Cofer. In a recently released book
entitled “Gatekeeper” the author, John Sullivan, states that “In my 35 years of
experience with the CIA, I have never seen a better interrogator than Sheriff
Robert J. Pickell.” Sheriff Pickell traveled on four continents working high
profile cases for the CIA.
He returned to Genesee
County in 1994, and established Pickell Investigations and
Polygraph Services in Flint, Michigan. He owned and operated
this until he was appointed Sheriff in 1999.
As Sheriff, he implemented
the Sheriff’s Consumer Protection to protect senior citizens
from fraud and deception. Since its inception, there has been
$3,000,000.00 returned to citizens. Sheriff Pickell implemented
a county-wide drug team “POSSE” that goes after mid and upper
level drug dealers. In 2007, Sheriff Pickell formed the Elder
Abuse and Financial Exploitation Prevention Team that he
administers.
Sheriff Pickell has been
appointed by Governor Granholm to three State Commissions, The
Governor’s Elder Abuse Task Force, where he served as
Vice-Chairperson, The Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement
Standards (MCOLES), and the Community Corrections Commission.
He is a member of the
National Sheriff’s Association, Genesee County Association of
Chiefs of Police, 9-1-1 Executive Board, and the Law Enforcement
Officers Training Consortium.
*excerpt from the book: "GATEKEEPER" by John
Sullivan
<< Video clip from 60 minutes showing how a New York State Trooper was
exposed for falsifying evidence. Sheriff Robert J. Pickell, a former
CIA polygraph examiner played a key role in this case.
