LA Times hires Bloomberg’s Wilber

David Lauter, Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, sent out the following announcement on Tuesday:

I’m very happy to report an excellent addition soon to join our ranks — a new reporter to cover the Justice Department. Del Wilber, who will be coming aboard shortly, joins us from Bloomberg, where he has worked the Justice Department beat for the past couple of years. Previously, he covered federal law enforcement and courts for the Washington Post for a decade and, before that, cops and corruption for the Baltimore Sun. At the Sun, he was, among other achievements, a standout reporter on the 2002 DC sniper story, for which the paper was a Pulitzer finalist.

Del is the author of two books, “Rawhide Down,” in 2011, a best-selling account of John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, and the newly published “A Good Month for Murder,” an account of the life of a homicide squad in Prince George’s County.

The Justice Department beat, which touches on so many vital stories, has been a source of strength for this bureau for decades, going back to Ron Ostrow and Bob Jackson, and extending to Rick Serrano and Tim Phelps. With Del, we have a worthy successor to that tradition, and we’re delighted to have him.