Officer Sought in $247,500 Loss Nabbed by Navy : Manhunt: Trip to a Norfolk, Va., bar was a mistake for a missing lieutenant who is suspected of taking funds from a San Diego-based ship.

After three months of sleuthing, Navy officials have caught an officer who disappeared a month before $247,500 turned up missing from the San Diego-based Tuscaloosa, a tank landing ship.

Lt. Bradley Scott Darr, 31, was arrested Wednesday night in Norfolk, Va., after a Naval Investigative Services agent noticed him in a local bar on Christmas. The agent left the bar, however, thinking that Darr looked familiar but not remembering why.

In his office the following day, the agent scanned photographs of individuals sought by the Navy and realized he had seen Darr.

Since Christmas, NIS agents have been searching Norfolk for Darr, a disbursing officer who once handled payroll and purchasing and had access to $1.2 million aboard ship. Wednesday night, 20 agents went to area nightclubs and found Darr, a North Carolina native.

Darr said he had financial problems caused by gambling, according to NIS spokesman Michael G. Bourke, who said agents believed Darr was in Norfolk because his credit card had been used there in recent weeks.

“This was good sound investigative techniques and dogged persistence by the Naval Investigative Services,” said Rick Machin, deputy regional director for the NIS mid-Atlantic region. “We put shoe leather to the street.”

Agents also found more than $130,000 of the missing money, Machin said.

Darr is being held in Norfolk while authorities decide whether to hold a trial in Virginia or San Diego. Darr will probably be charged with desertion and theft of government funds, sources said. Desertion alone is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Darr, who worked in Las Vegas casinos before enlisting three years ago, had failed to report for duty when he was assigned to an naval air station in Italy Aug. 23. One month later, he was declared a deserter. Then, after a routine audit in September, officials realized that ship funds were also missing.

Aboard many ships, sailors are paid in cash because they spend long stretches at sea and are rarely in a port long enough to establish a bank account.

The Tuscaloosa, which has a 340-member crew, can also house and transport 349 troops. Darr, a supply corps officer, could cash and write checks for those aboard. Officials said a payroll officer could have written a single check for $247,500, called ahead to the bank so that the cash was waiting for him, and picked up the money later.

“As disbursing officer, he had the opportunity to make the books balance,” Machin said.

For NIS agents, involved in the case since Sept. 25, finding Darr concludes what has been a tough case--trying to locate a man who could be anywhere in the world.

“We were just talking about ol’ Bradley and wondering what he was going to do for Christmas,” Bourke said. “Then just by fate, some guy sees him. It was a lot of good investigative work. And sometimes in law enforcement, it’s a lot of luck.”