William C. Rempel

Bill Rempel’s long and eventful career at the Los Angeles Times, both as a writer and an editor, produced an impressive collection of high-profile projects and change-makers. His reporting triggered government investigations, exposed White House and Pentagon scandals, and prompted reforms of state courts and consumer protection laws. Groundbreaking reports on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were published before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and his extensive coverage of supertanker safety flaws began years before the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. The datelines on his overseas investigative reports range from Kiev to the Turks and Caicos Islands. He has co-authored exclusive reports detailing secret U.S. arms deals with Iran, tracking tons of explosives smuggled to terrorist camps in Libya, tracing embargoed nuclear technology out of South Africa and documenting sales and leases of Ukrainian cargo planes to Colombian drug lords. In the 1990s, he broke a number of major political stories in the U.S. about Bill Clinton in Arkansas and subsequent financial controversies surrounding the 1996 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign. In 2000, his reporting in Texas documented how criminals and other unqualified applicants obtained permits to carry concealed handguns under a controversial weapons law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush. Rempel’s work has been recognized with numerous journalistic honors, including an Overseas Press Club award and the Gerald Loeb Award. He was also a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. His examination of the corrupt regime of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos led to disclosure of the Marcos diaries and his first book, DELUSIONS OF A DICTATOR (Little, Brown and Company, 1993). It was updated and re-released in 2013 as the e-Book, DIARY OF A DICTATOR — Ferdinand & Imelda: The Last Days of Camelot. He spent nearly a decade in secret contacts with a former high ranking Colombian drug figure under federal protection somewhere in the United States, patiently amassing material until he could write AT THE DEVIL'S TABLE: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel (Random House, 2011). The book has since been issued in Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Serbian and Polish. An 80-episode Spanish language television series based on his book was released in 2014 by Sony-Teleset under the title: "En la Boca del Lobo" (In the Jaws of the Wolf). It is available in much of the world on Netflix. In 2017 Rempel was a consultant for the third season of the Netflix series "Narcos," a season based on his book. Rempel has appeared on numerous radio and television current affairs programs, including The Today Show, Nightline, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Reliable Sources and This American Life. He was born in Palmer — in the Territory of Alaska — the grandson of Matanuska Valley homesteaders from Michigan and Russia. As a boy, he moved with his family to California where he later attended Pepperdine College on a journalism scholarship. His first newsroom after graduation was at the Copley chain’s South Bay Daily Breeze where he became assistant city editor and ran a team of government reporters covering city halls and school boards. Rempel joined the Los Angeles Times in 1973, covering suburban Los Angeles before taking over a metro beat covering the waterfront. He was later a roving state feature writer, business writer and a national correspondent based in Chicago for five winters. For the next 20-plus years Rempel led teams of investigative reporters both as a writer and editor. He left the Times in 2009 to complete work on his book, AT THE DEVIL'S TABLE. His newest title THE GAMBLER, publishing with Harper Collins in January 2018 is a biography of self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian — daring aviator, gambler, and business tycoon — who bet on casinos and Wall Street in a career spanning eight decades. It is also available in Russian, Armenian and Japanese. Connect with Bill on Twitter @WilliamRempel and his website williamrempel.com.