Bar counsel turned CIA agent remembered for his dedication to nation he loved: Gregg Wenzel 'provided insights into a variety of critical targets, ranging from countries hostile to the U.S. to extremists spreading messages of intolerance and hate'.

Mitchell Wenzel was uncharacteristically napping that July afternoon in 2003, when he was jolted awake by his wife's screams.

Federal agents in the couple's living room had just told her that their 33-year-old son, Gregg, a former Florida Bar counsel turned CIA operations officer, was killed in a car crash in Ethiopia.

Stunned, Wenzel's first thought was false flag operation --some elaborate agency dodge to give Gregg cover for a secret mission.

"I said to them, 'You're just telling us he's going deep undercover,'" Wenzel said. "They said no, the information is just coming out, but this is the real thing. It was very hard to accept."

Nearly 20 years after the tragedy, the retired college professor is eager for the world to know about his son's magnetic personality, famous sense of humor--and above all, service to his country.

"He was a spy for the U.S.," Wenzel says. "I want people to realize that there are people in our country that want to make a difference, to have a better country, to have a better world."

Wenzel recounts Gregg's exploits in "The Life and Wrongful Death of Gregg David Wenzel, Clandestine CIA Officer Star 81," a 2019 tribute now available in paperback on Amazon.

Written by Esther V. Levy, the book lists Mitchell Wenzel and his late wife, Gladys, who died in 2020, as editors.

Born in the Bronx, and raised with three sisters, Gregg graduated with honors from Monroe-Woodbury High School in Central Valley, New York. He went on to earn a B.A. in history from State University of New York (SUNY) in Binghamton in 1991.

The plan was always to be a lawyer and a judge, Wenzel said. Gregg came close to enrolling in West Point but changed his mind when he realized it might limit his career options, Wenzel said.

"He realized there's no guarantee, that they own you for four years, and you don't get to make a choice," Wenzel said.

Gregg enrolled in the University of Miami School of Law, where his studies were briefly interrupted by Hurricane Andrew, the Category 5 behemoth that blasted South Florida and temporarily closed the law school's Coral Gables campus.

Gregg worked with a cleanup crew in the weeks after the storm, until it was no longer possible, his father recalls.

"Eventually he came home, there was no food, no water, and no way to get fuel," he said.

After earning his J.D. in 1994, Gregg worked as a criminal defense attorney, taught legal courses at the Miami-Dade Community College Police Academy, and served as a Florida Bar...