Larry Keefe is Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis with the approval of the Florida Cabinet in September 2026.
He brings to FDLE more than three decades of experience in federal law enforcement, the courtroom, and state government leadership.
In each of those roles, the job at its core was the same: bringing sheriffs, police chiefs, state investigators, and federal agents together to expand Florida’s capacity to protect its communities.
Keefe served in the DeSantis administration as Florida’s first Public Safety Czar and then as the inaugural Executive Director of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, a new body created within FDLE and answerable to the Governor and Cabinet.
Neither role existed until he was asked to build it. In both, Keefe stood up the operation and built its working relationship with law enforcement partners across jurisdictions.
Commissioner Keefe was sworn in as the 41st United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida in January 2019 following nomination by President Donald Trump and confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
As the district’s chief federal law enforcement officer, he led prosecutions across 23 counties, from Pensacola to Gainesville, on priorities including gun violence, public corruption, crimes against children and drug trafficking. His office created the Gainesville Gun Violence Initiative and a federal, state and local gun-crime strike force in Tallahassee; created a Public Trust Unit that brought nearly 20 public corruption cases in its first year, including the $5 million Hurricane Michael cleanup fraud in Lynn Haven; and indicted 39 defendants in 2020 alone for the sexual exploitation of children.
Keefe came to public service from the courtroom. He began his legal career in Tampa trying complex business, construction and product-liability cases, then returned home to Northwest Florida in 1991, where he practiced civil and criminal law in state and federal trial and appellate courts.
A native of Okaloosa County, he earned his bachelor’s degree with honors in 1983 and his law degree in 1986 from the University of Florida, where he played football on scholarship.
Source: www.fdle.state.fl.us
