FBI Names New Head of Los Angeles Office : Law enforcement: 22-year veteran of bureau will lead its third-largest operation. He has specialized in gambling and organized crime investigations.

WASHINGTON —  Charlie J. Parsons, a 22-year FBI veteran who has specialized in gambling and organized crime investigations, will head the bureau’s Los Angeles office, FBI Director William S. Sessions said Tuesday.

Succeeding Larry Lawler, who is retiring, Parsons, 47, also brings to the FBI’s third-largest office experience as head of the organization’s inspection operation--the unit whose agents examine whether field offices are running as FBI policy dictates.

Parsons, whose Kingsport, Tenn., and Longview, Tex., roots can be detected in his soft drawl, said that it is premature to discuss or even consider possible changes in the Los Angeles office’s priorities. He said he does not want to appear as sitting “back here in Washington as the seat of all knowledge.”

But in an interview, Parsons cited Asian organized crime, defense fraud, savings and loan investigations, foreign counterintelligence and massive cocaine distribution as areas of special interest.

On one of the most ticklish investigations under way--the federal inquiry into the beating of motorist Rodney G. King by Los Angeles police officers--Parsons said he understands that the Los Angeles Police Department is “cooperating fully.”

He described the case as “very important,” declaring, “we’ll do our job.” But he said he is “not sure of the exact status” of the investigation. Other sources said it is essentially on hold, awaiting the outcome of Los Angeles County efforts to prosecute officers charged in the King case.

The move from Washington to Los Angeles will be the fifth transfer in seven years for Parsons. He made it clear that he would like to spend the next nine years until he reaches mandatory retirement in the new post.

Although Parsons’ sons--Christopher, 14, and Chad, 12--have come to view frequent moves as the “norm,” he said he broached the subject of the move to the two dedicated sports fans and his wife, Christina, by bringing home a pair of Lakers caps.

Parsons joined the FBI in 1969, shortly after receiving his law degree from the University of Houston’s Bates College of Law. After a year in the New Haven, Conn., field office, he was transferred to New York.

For five years, he taught “gambling technology” at the FBI’s Academy in Quantico, Va., to agents and local, state and foreign law enforcement officers.

Parsons said that he became familiar with Los Angeles and its crime problems from Nevada, where he headed organized crime inquiries for the FBI from 1979 to 1984.

Investigations that he directed included mob infiltration of the casino industry, “skimming” of pre-tax casino revenues and several gangland slayings.

In May, 1984, Parsons moved to Kansas City as assistant special agent in charge of the office. Two years later, he moved to Washington as an inspector and then became special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio office.

In 1989, he returned to Washington as deputy assistant director in the inspection division.

“I want to be responsive to the community and the concerns of the community,” Parsons said of his Los Angeles assignment, noting that he wants “to verify that we’re putting our resources in the right place.”