A former state fish and wildlife agent who’s now a Coast Guard criminal investigator will be Clallam County’s new undersheriff.
Sheriff Bill Benedict said Monday that Ron Peregrine was his choice from the top three candidates for the job.
Nearly 30 applicants sought the position, Benedict said.
Benedict called Peregrine “a very strong indication of the direction I’m taking with this department.”
Peregrine, in turn, said, “So much of his [Benedict’s] vision is a vision that I share.”
Peregrine opened a Coast Guard Investigative Service office in Port Angeles in 1999 and was one of the law enforcement officers who arrested Ahmed Ressam late that year.
Ressam, an Algerian national, had tried to smuggle explosives in his rental car off the MV Coho into Port Angeles. His goal, according to court testimony, was to bomb Los Angeles International Airport around the millennium.
With the Coast Guard – from which he will retire in the next two weeks – Peregrine was a member of the Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team, better known as OPNET.
