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Supervisory Special Agent Nicole Sinegar currently heads the Beaumont FBI Office. -
Supervisory Special Agent Nicole Sinegar, pictured here before her promotion, arrests a woman during her stint in the Houston Field Office working in the human trafficking squad. -
Sinegar overcame doubts from her own parents to not only become an FBI agent, but to lead her own office.
From admittedly modest beginnings as a child in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, parents of Beaumont’s top FBI agent laughed at her ambition of joining the organization. Now, the Beaumont FBI Office’s new supervisory special agent comes into the role hoping to better utilize information from the public in combating crime in her six-county area.
In the wake of Supervisory Special Agent (SSRA) Nicole Sinegar’s move into the top position at the Beaumont office, the agent spoke with The Examiner about her path to the leadership position, as well as what she hopes to accomplish.
“The culture in New Orleans is that you work – you get your high school diploma, and then you work,” SSRA Sinegar told The Examiner when recalling her upbringing in the Lower Ninth Ward.
In a story she now recounts with a chuckle herself, Sinegar said her parents actually laughed at her when she revealed her teenage dream of working for the FBI one day, and that’s when the would-be supervisory special agent cerebrally cemented the intent.
Sinegar said college just wasn’t at the forefront of discussions had by New Orleans teens, saying she originally thought she’d end up as a mechanic or a cosmetologist. She was taking classes in those fields when she “stumbled” into a law studies class.
“So, it was foriegn to my family that I even wanted to go to college, but there was an instructor in my high school, Mr. Plasick,” she explained. “He was so instrumental; he saw something in me and I should think about pursuing law enforcement. At that time, I thought that meant the local police department. But he is the person who actually gave me an awareness of the FBI and what the FBI was about.”
Sinegar said that encounter with her high school teacher inspired what would become a decades-long career tracking down some of the country’s most heinous criminals in the black market world of human and drug trafficking.
“Growing up in the inner city, police and law enforcement were not one of those favored career tracks that my folks would want our family members to pursue because of the history in New Orleans with the law enforcement,” she offered. “Bringing home to my family that I wanted to be in the FBI, it was almost a joke. So when they did actually laugh at me, I made it a goal of mine to get to the FBI.”
Bookending tragedy with triumphs
Upon graduating from L.E. Rabouin Career Magnet School, Sinegar became the first in her family to graduate from college. However, her triumph was followed by tragedy in her hometown, as one of the most harrowing happenings to hit the city swept through shortly thereafter.
“Right after college, that’s when Hurricane Katrina happened,” she said. “I had to figure something out for my life.”
After evacuating New Orleans, where her neighborhood became internationally known for being one of the most severely flooded in the city, Sinegar earned acceptance into graduate school at Clark Atlanta University.
“And I just headed out to Atlanta with just clothes and a car,” she added. “When I found out that we lost our home during Katrina, I was going to be homeless if I didn’t find a job. I got on with the Dekalb County Sheriff’s Office and worked as a jailer full-time while I was a full-time graduate student. That kinda kicked off my law enforcement career,”
While in Atlanta, Sinegar worked at one of the largest prisons in the Southeastern United States, keeping a watchful eye on some of the country’s “maximum security” threats. It wasn’t long until she’d be arresting some of the country’s “most egregious” criminals herself.
From FBI fledgling to Supervisory Agent
Sinegar began her FBI career working in a particularly busy bureau office – the Washington D.C. Field Office. Careful not to reveal too much about her work, she told The Examiner, “While at Washington field, it was one particular type of investigation, and I’ll just say it was national security related.”
From there, Sinegar took a “very rewarding” assignment in Virginia as an intelligence analyst, investigating “some of the most egregious” drug trafficking organizations in the world. Working under the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, Sinegar’s job included identifying some of the world’s largest traffickers who were trying to bring millions of dollars worth of drugs into the country.
The intrepid agent said she actually chose her new Beaumont assignment when the bureau offered her the lead role in the Southeast Texas office, versus an offer to take a position in Las Vegas, focusing on one type of violation.
“Beaumont is unique,” she said when asked what inspired her decision. “Beaumont is an extension of the Houston Field Office. The difference is that the Houston Field Office has squads. You have a team of people who might be focused on one, singular violation. You’ll have a human trafficking squad, and you’ll have a violent crimes squad and so forth. Here in Beaumont, our team focuses on everything. So when I saw this opportunity come up, I saw it as a chance for me to develop my skill sets across the board for leading the troops here, effectively investigating complex cases across our purview, instead of just focusing on a squad.”
Some of the main violations that the Beaumont office targets are violent crime, violent gangs, neighborhood gangs, Sinegar revealed, “and any organization that has a structure or hierarchy and they are engaging in violence or criminal activity to further their organization – that’s what we’re interested in.”
Sex trafficking of minors, production of child pornography – or what we refer to as CSAM (child sexual assault material) – and then human trafficking of minors, human trafficking of our international victims are things we really hone in on, as well.”
While the Beaumont FBI Office is unique in how it investigates and fights crime, the area is also home to a common, inanimate crime facilitator.
“Any time you have an interstate, where folks can get from point A to point B to conduct criminal activity, you’re gonna have a problem,” Sinegar said when asked about criminal commerce committed along Interstate 10. “It’s our goal to mitigate those threats and mitigate our children from falling victim to those individuals who prey on minors.”
Sinegar said one of her goals as she leads the FBI office covering Hardin, Jefferson, Jasper, Liberty, Newton and Orange counties is to get the public involved in combating violent crimes against children, as well as public corruption – two areas where civilian information is imperative. To that end, she offered two phone numbers for residents to remember: The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-373-7888 and is open 24/7 for calls to report trafficking and offer support for victims across the country; To report public corruption to the FBI, Sinegar encourages residents to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.
“We want to make sure that the public knows the FBI is here and is interested in their information, if they have any, pertaining to trafficking, violent gangs, public corruption and domestic terrorism. Similar to Houston, we will need our community support in advising us on what they see.”