27-state dragnet snares 9,037 of worst fugitives

Among those arrested were 1,102 sex offenders.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ten years to the day after allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl, a California man was arrested in a roundup of fugitives that law enforcement officials say snared more than 1,100 sex offenders.
The concentrated search for people wanted for federal, state and local crimes "targeted the worst of the worst," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Thursday at a news conference announcing the results of "Operation Falcon II."
Authorities arrested 9,037 people April 17 to last Sunday in a 27-state dragnet led by the U.S. Marshals Service and timed to coincide with National Victims Rights Week. Among those apprehended were 1,102 people wanted for violent sex crimes or failure to register as sex offenders.
No other single law enforcement operation had resulted in the capture of as many suspected sex offenders, the Justice Department said. The arrests came mainly in states west of the Mississippi River, and in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Gonzales has directed investigators to focus on sex crimes as part of his effort to call attention to child pornography and other crimes against children.
Fled to Mexico
One of those arrested last week was Primo Montes, 37, who was picked up April 18 as he tried to visit his pregnant wife in Escondido, Calif. Ten years earlier, Montes and a second man allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl. Montes fled to Mexico to escape prosecution, but investigators learned he might try to see his wife, the Marshals Service said in a summary of the case.
Marshals arrested Montes when he appeared.
Nearly 80,000 fugitives were arrested last year, just under half by the Marshals Service and the rest by state and local police working with federal authorities. More than 10,000 of those arrests came during a similar nationwide sweep last year.
Millions of fugitives
The operations in the past two years produced roughly 10 times the average number of weekly arrests, but even that barely dents the fugitive caseload. The FBI database contains names of a million fugitives. The director of the Marshals Service, John Clark, said Thursday there are a "few million fugitives" in the United States, most of them wanted on state and local charges.
The agency spent $531,000 on the weeklong exercise, most of it to pay overtime to local and state police, said David Dimmitt, chief deputy U.S. Marshal. More than 2,100 officers from 786 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies took part.
A second phase, targeting the eastern United States, will take place in the coming months, Gonzales said.
Among those caught was William Wisham, 60, who authorities said failed to register as a sex offender when he moved to a motel in Victorville, Calif. Investigators found letters to children and notes explaining why he enjoys sex with children, as well as child pornography, candy and methamphetamines, authorities said.
Police are working to locate children listed in Wisham's diary-style notes.
On the Hawaiian island of Oahu, police arrested Herbert Damwijk, 30, who is wanted in Washington state on two counts of child rape and molestation against 8-year-old girls, the department said. He was arrested April 17 at his father's residence and awaits extradition to Washington.
Reginald Dozier, 39, was arrested in Belleville, Ill., at 12:01 a.m. April 17, the first minute of the operation, for failing to register as a sex offender. Dozier had earlier been convicted of raping a girl younger than 13 and giving her gonorrhea.
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