WESTFIELD — A Westfield resident and former FBI agent whose work has been featured in a Netflix documentary will be the kickoff speaker in this year’s Hale Speaker Series at the Westfield Memorial Library.
Jim Kossler was the coordinating supervisor for the FBI’s Manhattan office and directed its Organized Crime efforts. The success of that work is highlighted in Fear City: New York vs. the Mafia, a Netflix offering that looks at the mob families that ruled the city in the 1970s and ’80s and the FBI agents who took them down.
Mr. Kossler’s Hale Series talk, entitled “The FBI vs. the Cosa Nostra,” is slated for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, and will focus on the rise and fall of the Mafia in New York.
With more than two decades as an FBI agent, Mr. Kossler has appeared as an expert witness who has testified in a large number of mob trials in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
He and his wife, Annamarie, who taught at McKinley Elementary School, have resided in Westfield for 45 years.
Now in its 15th year, the popular Hale Speaker Series is funded by the Lee and Anne Hale Fund, after whom the series is named, and The Glasser Foundation. The 45-minute talks, followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer period, are hosted by the Friends of Westfield Memorial Library and held in the library’s Meeting Room. Four talks are presented each year, featuring speakers having connections to Westfield.
Attendance is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required online at www.wmlnj.org or by calling (908) 789-4090, extension 0. The talks also are available on The Friends’YouTube channel, fwmlnj.
Linnea Rhodes is chairman of the Hale Speaker Series committee, the members of which include the Hales’ daughter, Barbara, as well as Marcy Lechner, Mary Orlando, Tina Lesher, Ellen Albertson and Sherry Cronin.
