01/10/2019—Our partners at the US Marshals Service apprehended #8 on the Colorado Top 100 Most Wanted Fugitive Sex Offender list in Tennessee on January 10. The following US Marshals Service news release provides details about the arrest.
Please see the news release from the U.S. Marshals Service below.
Number 8 on Colorado’s Top 100 Sex Offender Fugitive List Arrested by U.S. Marshals
JANUARY 10, 2019—KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE – After being on the run since February of 2017, Colorado Sex Offender Fugitive Pete Custer is now in custody. The United States Marshals Service in the Eastern District of Tennessee located and arrested Custer today at 8:00 am in Morristown, Tennessee. Custer was convicted in Los Angeles County, California in 1991 of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under the age of 14. Custer was in and out of prison for a number of years in California, and later fled to Colorado where he was arrested and imprisoned on additional charges.
Upon his release from prison in Colorado, he fled his term of parole and was on the run again until his
arrest today in Tennessee.
Deputy U.S. Marshals in Colorado began their search for Custer earlier this month, and coordinated with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as part of their efforts to locate fugitives on the state’s Top 100 Most Wanted Fugitive Sex Offender list.
The trail for Custer went cold in Key West, however, investigators were led to a location in the small town of Morristown, Tennessee where Custer was believed to be living. Acting on information provided by deputy marshals in Colorado, it didn’t take long for deputy marshals in Morristown to locate Custer working at a local grocery store. Custer now faces charges of failure to register as a sex
offender in Tennessee in addition to charges he already had in Colorado and California.
The Colorado Violent Offender Task Force (VOTF) is a multi-jurisdictional fugitive task force that targets the most violent offenders to include those wanted for murder, assault, sex offenses, and other serious offenses throughout the state and country. The CBI is an active
partner of the VOTF, providing investigative resources and comprehensive analytical support.
In East Tennessee, the U.S. Postal Inspectors, the Blount County Sheriff’s Office and the Hamblen County Sheriff’s Office were instrumental in Custer’s arrest.
Nationally, the U.S. Marshals Service fugitive programs are carried out with local law enforcement in 94 district offices, 85 local fugitive task forces, eight regional task forces, as well as a growing network of offices in foreign countries.