Monday, March 22, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.
A U.S. Marshal-led fugitive-catching unit has nabbed almost 1,000 criminals over the last four years, but reduced staffing could limit the numbers of offenders caught in Las Vegas in the future.
The number of marshals assigned to Nevada has dwindled because of a federal budget that allows for only about 30 marshals in the state, leaving more than 10 positions open.
U.S. Marshal for Nevada Richard Winget said of the lack of staffing "hurts."
"Our first responsibility is to protect the federal judiciary and serve arrest warrants, but when the manpower shrinks our ability to go after fugitives is reduced," he said.
The Nevada Fugitive Investigative Strike Team, or FIST, targets violent fugitives with drug, weapons and money laundering offences. In addition to marshals, the team includes representatives from Metro Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Nevada Department of Parole and Probation.
Nevada Chief Deputy Marshal Fidencio Rivera said that even with an understaffed office the marshals will continue to work with Metro and other agencies to apprehend fugitives, although it could be on a more limited basis if more positions are lost.
"We have a long-term commitment to working with state and local authorities," Rivera said. "It becomes more of a challenge when we face manpower issues, but the bottom line is that these arrests are important to the community and we will continue to aggressively pursue them."
Along with arresting fugitives with FIST, the marshals are also responsible for serving federal warrants and arresting federal and international fugitives. Marshals have made more than 1,000 of these federal arrests since 2000 to go along with the 980 apprehensions credited to FIST.
Las Vegas has long been a destination for fugitives looking to blend in and hide out from authorities. Last week's arrest of Charles McCoy Jr. by Metro Police was just another in a long line of arrests of fugitives who thought they might not be found in Las Vegas.
"Nothing has changed as far as fugitives looking at Las Vegas as a place to come," Rivera said. "We still have 250,000 people here on the weekends, and they (the fugitives) see this as a place to blend in and live a good lifestyle."
FIST allows Metro and the marshals to pool resources, Rivera said.
"Metro is out on the street making contacts and we can bring our fugitive hunting expertise and contacts across the country," Rivera said. "We also bring electronic surveillance capabilities that the strike team can use.
"It doesn't make sense to duplicate capabilities, and the team allows us to work together."
The strike team works the phones as much as they work the streets, checking leads and providing information from other agencies around the country.
"Sometimes we don't leave the office, but our efforts helps lead to an arrest in another part of the country," Supervisory Marshal Pat Sedoti said. "Other times we are out on surveillance for days."
There are times when arrests are made easy by stupid mistakes on the part of fugitives feeling safe in Las Vegas, Sedoti said.
One example occurred as marshals were arresting two fugitives at a gas station in southwest Las Vegas. A Ford Excursion pulled into the gas station for fuel. A high-level cocaine trafficker was behind the wheel. Marshals were able to identify and arrest him because of the his vanity license plates. The plates read, "Camaron," the Spanish word for shrimp.
"Here was a guy who had fled the country to Mexico, and when he comes back he keeps the same vanity plates," Sedoti said. "He had the plates because he was a short guy."
archive
