Raymond Maria

Ray graduated from Garfield Heights High School in June 1957. He was a member of the National Honor Society and a two-year all-conference basketball player. Upon graduation Ray received an appointment to the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. In 1958, he enrolled at John Carroll University (JCU) in Cleveland, OH on a basketball scholarship.

Ray was a three-year starter for the JCU basketball team. In 1961, he was named to the Catholic Digest All-American Basketball Team. In his senior year he averaged 21.8 points per game and set the JCU single game scoring record of 45 points – a record that lasted 60 years. In 1962, Ray was selected as a first team all-conference player and first team Catholic College All-American.

Ray received his BSS degree magna cum laude with a major in history in June 1962. He completed the U.S. Army Advanced ROTC course and the ROTC flight program through which he received his FAA private pilot license. Following graduation, Ray was named a Distinguished Military Graduate and commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves.

Ray served on active duty at Ft. Eustis, Virginia from 1962 to 1964. Following his discharge as a 1st Lieutenant, he received an assistantship to pursue post-graduate studies at Ohio University, Athens, OH. He was awarded an M.Ed. degree in June 1965.

In June 1965, Ray was appointed a Special Agent of the FBI. Upon completion of training school, he was assigned to Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Amarillo, Texas during his first year of duty. He then was transferred to Baltimore, Maryland and Wilmington, Delaware. In 1968, Ray resigned from the FBI to accept a position as an executive recruiter on the consulting staff of Ernst & Ernst (E&E) in Cleveland.

Ernst & Ernst sponsored Ray and others who held graduate degrees in a special course at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio designed to provide the enrollees with a major in accountancy. Ray successfully completed this curriculum and passed the uniform CPA exam. During his active professional career, he was licensed to practice in Ohio and Virginia.

In June 1972, Ray left E&E to accept reappointment as a Special Agent of the FBI. In this second tour of duty, he was assigned to offices in Chicago, Miami (FL), FBI Headquarters (FBIHQ), and the FBI Academy. In Chicago, Ray was mentored by extraordinary Organized Crime (OC) Strike Force attorneys who instructed him in the investigation of OC’s penetration and control of certain labor unions as a means of creating criminal monopolies in certain industries. He built major RICO prosecutions of OC and Teamster officials in the trade show/exposition and trucking industries.

In the Miami Division, Ray conceptualized and supervised the southeastern U.S. portion of the FBI’s labor racketeering investigation, which was designed to identify and prosecute the racketeering activity of members of the Genovese and Gambino organized crime families, officers of the International Longshoremen’s Association, and shipping company officials. This nearly six-year project, which included multiple undercover agents and extensive electronic surveillance, produced more than 100 convictions. At this juncture in his career, Ray was promoted to be a Supervisory Special Agent.

While assigned to FBIHQ, Ray was detailed to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) chaired by Sen. Sam Nunn. In 1981, he organized and managed the PSI’s public hearing on waterfront corruption that led to the Labor Racketeering Amendments of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. During his FBI Academy tenure Ray was promoted to be the Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Director of the Training Division and later was detailed to become the Chief of Staff to the executive director of President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on Organized Crime.

In 1984, Ray again resigned from the FBI to accept a Senior Executive Service appointment as Deputy Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Labor. He testified frequently before Congress on the need for more vigorous criminal investigations in the employee benefit plan arena. Ray became the Acting Inspector General at the Department of Labor in 1989 and retired from the federal service in that capacity in September 1990.

Upon retirement, Ray formed RMG Systems, Ltd., (RMG) a consulting firm that provided fraud detection, forensic accounting, and litigation support services to major law firms, corporations, and state insurance regulators. From 1995-97, RMG established and managed the National Medicare Fraud Hotline at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Ray retired from the private sector in September 2014 and relocated first to Jacksonville Beach, FL and then to Texas, his state of preference, before returning to Northern Virginia in 2020.

Ray was predeceased by his parents, Toney and Estelle, and by his younger sister, Donna Maria Morrissey. He is survived by his daughter Leslie Ann Maria (Michael Nelson) of Arlington, VA and Long Lake, MN; his son David Maria (Sarah Northway Maria) of Arlington, VA; and four extraordinary grandchildren: Grace Elizabeth, Andrew Edward, Carolyn Jann, and Michael Robert.

Services will be held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Ray’s alma mater, John Carroll University: https://www.jcu.edu/give.