A lawyer for the U.S. Marshals Service moonlighting as a Fox Sports statistician enlisted deputy marshals to ferry him and others -- including broadcasters Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, and Troy Aikman -- to and from sporting events in government vehicles, according to a report released today by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine.
Joseph Band, who was a lawyer in the service's Office of the General Counsel since 1992, availed himself of USMS cars and deputy marshals -- at the 2007 World Series in Boston, the 2007 college football championship game and the 2008 Super Bowl, both in Phoenix, and a 2008 NFL playoff game in Tampa, the report says.
The report concludes that Band, who was a member of the USMS’s ethics team, violated the service’s policy and standards of ethical conduct. The U.S. attorney’s offices in Boston and the Eastern District of Virginia declined criminal prosecution, the report says. A spokeswoman for the USMS says Band has resigned, though she did not say when.
Band arranged for four deputy marshals to drive McCarver and Buck to two World Series games at Boston’s Fenway Park in 2007, according to the report. After the games, a USMS motorcade escorted the broadcasters’ limousines from the stadium.
Deputy marshals drove Band from the airport to the 2007 Bowl Championship Series game in Phoenix and back. For the 2008 Super Bowl in Phoenix, deputy marshals chauffeured Band, Buck, and Aikman between the airport, hotel, and football stadium, according to the report.
In Tampa, the local U.S. marshal, Thomas Hurlburt, organized Band’s departure from the stadium area with local police. The USMS vehicle in which Band rode led a motorcade that included Aikman’s and Buck’s limousines.
The report admonishes Hurlburt, U.S. Marshal David Gonzales of Arizona, and Yvonne Bonner, then the acting U.S. marshal of Massachusetts, for inappropriately granting Band’s requests to use USMS resources for personal business.
In a letter attached to the report, USMS Deputy Director Brian Beckwith said the service recognized a need for greater oversight of outside activities by its employees and said the human resources division and general counsel’s office expected to implement policy changes by the end of the month. Beckwith did not address the Band situation directly.
Band, who has worked part-time as a statistician for the Redskins for about 30 years, has also done work for various networks besides Fox, including ESPN and CBS. In another attachment to the report, Band’s lawyer, Jacob Stein of Stein, Mitchell & Muse, said his client had no “control, knowledge or decision making discretion with respect to the use of any government vehicle or government personnel.”
Click here for a copy of the full report, including the U.S marshals’ responses to Fine’s findings.
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