Dr. Joseph O’Brien is a highly decorated former FBI Special Agent, New York Times bestselling author of Boss of Bosses, and one of the men responsible for dismantling the New York Mafia in the 1980s. He holds a PhD in Criminal Justice, with a doctoral dissertation on Islamic terrorism. In short: not someone you want to f*** with.
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Joe O’Brien. I’m a native New Yorker, now based in South Florida. I spent nearly 20 years as an FBI Special Agent, primarily assigned to espionage and foreign counterintelligence cases, often working side by side with the CIA. During that same period, I also worked major Mafia investigations alongside my colleague and mentor, Special Agent Robert Levinson.
Bob Levinson and I received joint awards for successfully developing made members of La Cosa Nostra—the American Mafia. Together, we put a lot of wise guys behind bars. In 1987, I was awarded the United States Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor bestowed on a law enforcement officer in this country. In 1991, I chronicled that work in Boss of Bosses, a New York Times bestseller detailing the FBI’s pursuit of Paul Castellano—the real-life “father of The Godfather.”
After leaving the FBI, Bob and I remained close and transitioned into private investigation work—me in New York City, Bob in Florida—sharing several clients along the way. In 2007, we met for lunch at a Manhattan restaurant. Bob told me he was heading out on a mission. Instinctively, I knew it was for the CIA. I asked if he needed backup. He did—but, as he put it, “it wasn’t in the budget.”
Bob was being sent to Iran to recruit an American assassin who had been wanted by the FBI for murder for over three decades. I never saw Bob Levinson again—except later, on television, in hostage videos, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and begging the United States government for help.
Months after Bob’s capture, several of his friends received emails that appeared to be from him. The FBI dismissed them as fake and ignored them. Three years later, those same recipients received another email from the same address—this time containing hostage videos. By sending Bob on a mission he was neither trained nor prepared for, the agency gambled with his life. When the FBI dismissed the hostage communications, they effectively signed his death warrant.
In 2020, the FBI and CIA summoned Bob’s family—his wife Christine and their seven adult children—to Washington, D.C. They were told the government believed Bob was deceased. No proof. No remains. No realistic hope of repatriation. To this day, the case officially remains open.
Despite obstruction—and outright veiled threats—from both the FBI and CIA, I have worked tirelessly to uncover the truth about what really happened to former Special Agent Robert Levinson. Along the way, I developed my own informants inside Iran and pursued advanced academic research, earning a PhD in Criminal Justice. My doctoral dissertation on Islamic terrorism is published in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.