On January 28, 2026, Nicholas A. Ricigliano, Jr. was sworn in as the Acting United States Marshal (USM) for the District of New Jersey after being appointed by U.S. Attorney General.
Acting USM Ricigliano, Jr. was born in Elizabeth, NJ and raised in Union Township. The son of a Newark Police Officer, Nicholas enlisted in the United States Army when he was 17. Nicholas served four years of active duty and 17 years in the Army Reserve as a Military Police Officer, assigned to Germany, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Following his active-duty military service, Nicholas attended Rutgers University, graduating with a B.A. in History. In December 1996, Nicholas was hired by the United States Marshals Service. In April 1997, Nicholas graduated from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, earning the Outstanding Graduate Award for proficiency in marksmanship, academics, and physical fitness.
As a Deputy United States Marshal, Nicholas served in Washington D.C. and later in the Southern District of New York. On September 11, 2001, Nicholas responded to the terror attack on the World Trade Center and assisted with the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero in the weeks that followed the attacks on our Nation.
In March 2004, Nicholas was assigned full-time to the United States Marshals Service New York/New Jersey- Regional Fugitive Task Force. In 2010, Nicholas was promoted to Senior Inspector and appointed as the Sex Offender Investigations Coordinator, where he led the Task Force’s efforts in locating and arresting fugitive sex offenders and locating missing and endangered children.
In October 2021, Nicholas was promoted to Assistant Chief Inspector and named the Deputy Commander of the New Jersey Division of the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force and its offices in Newark, Trenton, Camden, and Atlantic City. As Deputy Commander, he oversaw the day-to-day operations of over 100 full-time and part-time task force officers and support staff from 44 partner agencies.
Nicholas is a two-time recipient of the Robert Forsyth Valor Award, the highest award for valor issued by the United States Marshals Service. In furtherance of his fugitive investigations, Nicholas represented the United States Marshals Service on America’s Most Wanted, Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force, and I (Almost) Got Away With It. His noteworthy arrests include the 2006 arrest of convicted child rapist and killer Jose Ortiz Collasso, who had been a fugitive since escaping prison in 1973. Nicholas also spearheaded the investigation that led to the 2018 arrest of Allan Mann for international child-abduction, which led to the reunion of the son Mann had kidnapped 31 years earlier with the then-adult son’s mother. In 2013, he was presented with the highly coveted New York City Police Department Detective Bureau’s Pin by the NYPD Chief of Detectives, an award rarely ever presented to persons outside of the NYPD, after participating in the successful manhunt and arrests of Daquan Wright and Daquan Breland, after they shot and killed a 16-month old infant in Brooklyn.
Although Nicholas has spent the bulk of his USMS career in fugitive investigations, he has participated in almost every aspect of the USMS mission portfolio. He notably was the deputy-in-charge of security for the Martha Stewart criminal trial in January 2004, has led multiple international investigations and extraditions across countries as far-reaching as Thailand, Australia, Japan, Germany, and the Dominican Republic, and has seized assets as varied as counterfeit luxury handbags, to yachts, to bootleg VHS tapes. Nicholas has led or participated in protective security details for multiple protected witnesses, Supreme Court Justices, District Court Judges, and other protected persons.