Federal manhunt underway for man who was former Gov. Larry Hogan's chief of staff

A federal manhunt is underway for Roy McGrath, once the chief of staff to ex-Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, after he failed to appear in court Monday for the first day of his trial on wire fraud and embezzlement charges. 

The U.S. Marshals Service launched an interstate fugitive search after a federal judge issued a warrant for McGrath's arrest. McGrath's face is plastered on a U.S. Marshals poster, which highlights charges against him for wire fraud, theft in programs receiving federal funds and falsification of records in federal investigations. 

McGrath was scheduled to appear in federal court in Baltimore on charges related to his tenure running the Maryland Environmental Service before joining Hogan's office as chief of staff in 2020. The 2021 indictment against McGrath says he sought to enrich himself personally by using his position as executive director of the agency and his role as chief of staff to the governor to engineer a payment from the agency he shouldn't have received. Prosecutors also allege that McGrath falsified his time sheets while he took a vacation to Europe and that he stole money for classes at Harvard. McGrath resigned from Hogan's office weeks after assuming the chief-of-staff job after an investigation found he wasn't forthcoming about the $230,000 severance package he had received for leaving the quasi-government agency, according to court filings.