Fugitive captured after high-speed chase

A 30-year-old fugitive who two weeks ago gave authorities the slip at his sentencing for credit-card fraud was caught by U.S. Marshals today after he had led them on a high-speed car chase in West Philadelphia, striking an officer along the way.

The drama began about noon, when marshals located Charles McLaurin inside a black Cadillac on the 4700 block of Chester Avenue, according to Jim Burke, supervisor of the U.S. Marshals Service's fugitive task force for Philadelphia.

The marshals approached the Cadillac, but McLaurin spotted them and took off. He drove onto the sidewalk, clipping a marshal with the passenger-side mirror before racing off westbound on Chester. The marshal suffered only minor injuries, Burke said.

McLaurin hit speeds of up to 100 m.p.h. and made it as far as the 6000 block of Chester in Kingsessing, where he slammed the Cadillac into an unoccupied parked car.

He hid in an abandoned building, but marshals found him after noticing a kicked-in window. He was apprehended without incident.

McLaurin - who pleaded guilty in December to identity theft and credit-card fraud in which he victimized, among others, retired New Jersey schoolteachers - was being held tonight at the federal detention facility in Center City.

He may be charged with assaulting a federal officer, Burke said.

McLaurin, who already was facing up to 10 years in prison, didn't appear ready to give up the game. Inside the Cadillac, authorities found a list containing more than 100 names and Social Security numbers, as well as credit-card statements and checkbooks belonging to other people, Burke said.

Between December 2001 and June 2003, McLaurin led a crew of thieves who used information stolen from Camden City schoolteachers to apply for credit cards, racking up $71,000 in debt, according to authorities. He used a similar scheme - credit cards and phony auto loans taken in the name of a tenant who lived in a building where McLaurin sometimes stayed - to acquire $30,000, according to prosecutors.

McLaurin became a fugitive at his sentencing hearing on March 5; he stepped outside during a break and never returned.

Authorities were searching today for McLaurin's mother, Gwenda Brown, who also was charged in the fraud scheme against teachers.

Anyone with information on Brown's whereabouts is asked to call the Marshals Service at 215-597-0374.