Marshals Service

President Clinton will nominate a son of the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to head the U.S. Marshals Service, the White House said. John Marshall, who would succeed Eduardo Gonzales, has been U.S. marshal at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., since 1994. His father, the first black justice, died in 1993. Marshall's brother, Thurgood Marshall Jr., is an assistant to the president for Cabinet affairs.

A Downey used-car dealer who allegedly used voodoo-like dolls targeting the prosecutor and investigators was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison for a multimillion-dollar house-buying fraud scheme. Ruben Hernandez was accused in 2008 in a series of house purchases using fake Social Security numbers and fake bank statements that defrauded banks of about $4 million. The U.S. Marshals Service took Hernandez into custody in February 2009 after he became involved in a high-speed chase.

The former president of a security firm providing guards for federal courthouses nationwide pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to bribe a U.S. Marshals Service employee and trying to win business by giving illegal gratuities to officials of the agency. Nicholas Pastoressa of Central Security Systems Inc., which has done $123 million worth of guard business with the marshals since 1988, faces up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines for conspiracy and tax evasion. The assistant U.S.

SERIES Ashes to Ashes: The time-traveling crime drama returns with new episodes (7 and 10 p.m. BBC America). The Biggest Loser: Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo is on hand to inspire the remaining contestants in this new episode of the weight-loss competition (8 p.m. NBC). American Idol: Oscar winner Jamie Foxx is tonight's guest mentor on the singing competition (8 p.m. Fox). Lost: The mysterious motives of the malevolent entity possessing John Locke (Terry O'Quinn)

A federal judge in Georgia habitually relied on deputy U.S. marshals to drive him and his colleagues to tennis courts and to take his car in for repairs. In Indiana, another federal jurist sought the help of a deputy marshal in herding cattle and purchasing a television set at a discount house. Objecting to such extreme cases of off-bench assignments--documented by federal authorities--the U.S. Marshals Service is seeking legislation to loosen the judicial grip over marshals by giving the U.S.

The U.S. Marshals Service has abruptly replaced the company that provides security at nearly half of the nation's federal courthouses as the FBI investigates the firm's handling of its multimillion-dollar contract. A spokesman for the Marshals Service said the company supplying courthouse guards, Central Security Systems Inc. of New York, was "temporarily suspend(ed) from contracting with the U.S. government" and that a new firm took over the job Thursday. Spokesman William M.

Police who had lobbed tear gas for hours at a Marina del Rey apartment after a narcotics suspect shot and wounded two lawmen Monday finally blew off the apartment door and searched room to room, finding the suspect dead after a 13-hour siege. Police said they didn't know what killed the 20-year-old man, whose body was found about midnight. Shortly after 4 p.m.

District of Columbia police believe that a human skull found inside a Washington house during a drug raid was being used to put a hex on a D.C. Superior Court judge, and they have alerted the U.S. Marshals Service, authorities said. The name of the judge, which police would not release, was found on a note inside the skull during the raid. Police have asked the Marshals Service, which provides protection for judges here, to inform the judge.

The U.S. Marshals Service announced today that it has rounded up more than 3,500 criminals in the West, Southwest and Mexico in the latest phase of its four-year nationwide fugitive manhunt campaign. The just-concluded eight-week operation resulted in the arrest of 3,506 fugitives, including 45 wanted for murder, 25 for kidnaping and 734 for major narcotics violations, the marshals service said. More than $130 million worth of narcotics and other contraband were seized.

U.S. Marshals Service Director Stanley E. Morris is scheduled to become a top deputy to Drug Control Policy Director William J. Bennett, White House officials said Thursday. The officials said that Bennett had chosen Morris as his deputy director for supply, a position with responsibility for drug interdiction and law enforcement efforts. President Bush has not yet made the nomination official, but sources said that they see no obstacle to Morris' appointment. The 47-year-old official is credited with rejuvenating the Marshals Service, which he took over in 1983.

FLORIDA Python hunting season scheduled State wildlife officials have created a special python hunting season to try to stop the spread of the nonnative snakes throughout the Everglades. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says anyone with a hunting license who pays a $26 permit fee can kill the reptiles from March 8 to April 17 on state-managed lands around the Everglades in South Florida. The season is open for Burmese and Indian pythons, African rock pythons, green anacondas and Nile monitor lizards.

A Southern California man has been arrested on suspicion of posing as a federal marshal to kidnap a distant cousin's wife and put her on a plane to the Philippines, police said Wednesday. Wearing a fake badge and a shirt imprinted with "U.S. Federal Agent," Gregory Denny, 37, turned up at the Hemet home of Craig Hibbard, a distant cousin, on Jan. 15, said Lt. Duane Wisehart of the Hemet Police Department. Displaying what turned out to be a pellet gun, Denny reportedly handcuffed Hibbard's wife, Cherrie Belle, and told the couple she was being deported, Wisehart said.

Black employees of the U.S. Marshals Service filed a racial discrimination lawsuit, saying they have been denied promotions by managers who belittled them as lazy. The suit in U.S. District Court, which seeks to represent 200 current or former black employees, alleges violations of federal civil rights laws and asks for damages of at least $300 million for lost back pay and harm suffered in a "hostile work environment."

The search for a death row inmate who walked unnoticed out of a Texas county jail became a nationwide manhunt Saturday as authorities investigated whether he had help making the brazen escape. The U.S. marshals service offered a $10,000 reward for the capture of Charles Victor Thompson and designated him a federal fugitive. Thompson, 35, of the Houston suburb of Tomball, escaped Thursday after meeting with an attorney, though not his defense attorney of record, authorities said.

An air marshal who was grounded after criticizing the Federal Air Marshal Service over security issues was told last week to come back to work, a day after he and the ACLU filed a lawsuit that threatened to call wider attention to his complaints. Frank Terreri contends a dress code requiring many agents to wear coats and ties makes them easy to spot in the mass of casually dressed passengers and undermines the marshals' ability to protect passengers.

In an operation that was equal parts police work, public relations and lobbying, the Justice Department said Thursday that it had conducted an unusual weeklong sweep with state and local authorities that led to the arrest of more than 10,000 fugitives wanted for murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery and drug offenses.

A federal magistrate in Sacramento ordered a convicted bank robber who shot a police officer back to certain imprisonment in Connecticut only a week after his story appeared on the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries." Jean Marie Gagnon, 35, a native of Montreal who was featured on the NBC program, was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers during a traffic stop near Orland in northern California, the Marshals Service said.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which provides security for federal courts and apprehends most federal fugitives, has been hit with sweeping budget cuts that will force layoffs of nearly a quarter of its employees in Los Angeles, federal officials said Friday. "It is kind of rough," said Craig L. Meacham, the U.S. marshal in Los Angeles. "It's taking a real hack out of the criminal justice system."

A multiagency task force led by the U.S. Marshals Service arrested 187 fugitives from the Inland Empire in the last week, seizing firearms, marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine, officials announced Friday. Authorities arrested fugitives wanted for drug possession, spousal battery and check forgery, officials said. "All of these individuals arrested, all 187, needed to be taken off the street," U.S. Marshal Adam Torres said. Authorities in San Bernardino and Riverside counties asked for assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service in November.

Police Chief David Bejarano will be wearing a new badge by the end of the month when he starts his new job as head of the U.S. Marshals Service for San Diego and Imperial counties. Bejarano, 46, said Wednesday that the U.S. Senate had approved his nomination to the post by President Bush.