BALTIMORE — The manhunt for Roy McGrath reached day 12 on Friday with few signs that federal authorities are ready to apprehend the fugitive who once served as chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
McGrath, 53, was supposed to stand trial on embezzlement and wire fraud charges in the U.S. District Court for Baltimore on March 13. He did not show up, prompting the presiding judge to issue a warrant for his arrest and triggering a multi-state search.
Federal authorities have gone silent about their efforts to bring McGrath into custody even as the case took strange turns. Here’s what we know:
A welfare check, a search warrant and silence
Within an hour of McGrath failing to show for his trial, an FBI agent in Baltimore called the Collier County Sheriff’s Office asking that deputies conduct a welfare check at McGrath’s home in Naples, Florida. The FBI agent said she was concerned McGrath could have died by suicide.
The sheriff’s office said McGrath was not home.
Federal agents descended on McGrath’s gated community the next day, March 14. They appeared to focus on the house McGrath shared with his wife, Laura Bruner, and another home a few doors down.
The same day, the U.S. Marshals Service, which is leading the manhunt, distributed a wanted poster picturing a McGrath wide-eyed, wearing a sport coat and tie.
March 15, two days after McGrath disappeared, agents armed with long guns came to McGrath’s door at dawn and raided the house. Equipped with a search warrant, they went through the house and confiscated Bruner’s phone.
It’s unclear what else they took that day.
Mounting speculation about McGrath’s whereabouts reached a crescendo this week with the release on Amazon of a self-published book about his brief stint as Hogan’s top aide. The digital book allegedly was written by a mysterious author whose identity could not be verified.
Setting a trap: How do the feds typically find fugitives?
Such searches typically begin with the gumshoe detective work common in any criminal investigation: canvassing the missing person’s neighborhood, interviewing people close to them, looking for video of their movement.
“(Investigators) try to reconstruct from the home base. In other words, is this somebody who’s hiding out at a relative’s house? Is this somebody who was seen loading a moving van last night?” said James Trusty, a former federal prosecutor who led the Justice Department’s gang unit.
A fugitive’s family members and close friends can expect to face a “tremendous” amount of pressure from law enforcement hunting a wanted person in a high-profile case, said Kevin Connolly, a retired U.S. marshal who conducted thousands of fugitive investigations in his career.
“Everyone is going to be interviewed who knew this person,” Connolly said.
At the same time, law enforcement seek legal access to the fugitive’s financial and phone records and anything else that could be telling of their level of planning or provide clues as to their whereabouts.
“The amount of money being accessed can tell you a little bit about planning: Is this somebody who took out $100 to eat? Or is this somebody who took out $5,000 for some kind of international travel?” Trusty said.
If the marshals know someone fled, or believe they will flee, the country, they often seek a “Red Notice” with Interpol — the International Criminal Police Organization that facilitates police collaboration around the world — asking authorities in other countries to detain the person if they encounter them, Connolly said.
Interpol’s website did not list a Red Notice for McGrath as of Friday afternoon.
Richard Henry, who was a marshal for almost three decades, likened the typical fugitive investigation to casting a vast fishing net and waiting to see what it snags.
“Eventually, it’s going to be the fugitive who trips up, calls their family, reaches out to someone in desperation,” Henry said. “In this case, you’ve set your trap. Now you’re just waiting to see if what you set is going to catch the person.”
Faked deaths, aliases, foreign countries
A Maryland businessman accused of stealing $28 million fled the country in 1988. Tom J. Billman lasted four years on the lam, living under an alias and using a fake British passport, until authorities arrested him outside a Paris apartment.
Having originally absconded to live with family friends in Rome, former Prince George’s County politician Anthony J. Cicoria spent the last months before his 1993 capture hiding from the law in cheap motels in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida. From his jail, he told The Washington Post, that fugitive life “was hell.”
More recently, Samuel Israel III, a hedge fund manager who pilfered $450 million from investors, faked his death in 2008 by parking his car on a bridge over the Hudson River in Upstate New York and leaving a suicide note. Israel spent about a month living at a Massachusetts campground before surrendering, as authorities closed in, shortly after a phone call with his mother.
John Ruffo was convicted in Virginia, along with an accomplice, of a fraud scheme worth $350 million. He was released on a $10 million bond before he was supposed to report to federal custody to serve a 17-year prison sentence.
He disappeared in 1998 and has been wanted ever since.
The marshals service says Ruffo has extensive connections around the globe, and now counts him among its “15 Most Wanted Fugitives.”
A former marshal on how fugitives avoid detection
In high-profile cases like McGrath’s, a fugitive likely would have to flee the country to have a chance at avoiding detection for any substantial time frame, said Connolly, who worked for the Marshals Service in the Washington, D.C. area and supervised the regional fugitive task force in Richmond, Virginia, for 17 years.
From Florida, Connolly said, one might head to the Keys and pay for a boat ride to the U.S. Virgin Islands as a first stop on the way to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.
“There are people who will take you on a ‘fast boat,’ as they call them, and circumvent customs and you can just get off and pay cash,” he said.
Even if a fugitive doesn’t have contacts in the criminal underground, “money talks,” he said.
Once abroad, someone with means may be able to shop for a fake birth certificate. They might be able to take up residence in a place like the U.S. Virgin Islands and apply for an American passport under their assumed identity.
“Then you can go anywhere,” said Connolly, adding, however, that “all that would mean is you’re delaying the inevitable arrest.”
He said a life spent trying to avoid capture can be lonely and stressful.
“It’s not like you just kick back underneath a coconut tree,” Connolly said.
“The average white-collar fraud guy will crumble under the pressure that being a fugitive requires,” he said. “You’re a big shot and you’re being driven underground and you’re being hunted.”
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