Donald Trump promotes Miami’s Gadyaces Serralta to lead U.S. Marshal Service

Donald Trump continues to fill roles in his new administration, and one of his latest picks is known within the South Florida law enforcement community and to those familiar with the President’s first administration.

Trump has selected Gadyaces “Gady” Serralta as the next Director of the U.S. Marshal Service, which serves as the enforcement and security arm of the federal judiciary.

He takes over for Mark Pittella, who has served as Deputy Director since August 2024. Ronald Davis was the agency’s previous Director, a position now listed as “vacant.”

“Gady is a lifelong public servant,” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform. “Gady will work with our GREAT Attorney General Pam Bondi to make sure that we restore Law and Order, and Make America Safe Again. Congratulations Gady!”

Serralta’s appointment is a big promotion over from current role as the U.S. Marshal for the Miami-headquartered Southern District of Florida, which covers Broward, Highlands, Glades, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Okeechobee, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties.

Trump placed him there in 2018. Three years later, ex-President Joe Biden kept Serralta in the post after competing groups appointed by Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio — a Republican whom Trump tapped in November for Secretary of State — both recommended that he stay on in the job.

The President said he’s “done an incredible job for the past six years.”

Serralta previously served as a major with the Miami-Dade Police Department, where he began his career in 1990, and as commander of the Palmetto Bay Policing Unit.

Trump’s post errantly referred to Serralta as “Police Chief for Palmetto Bay.”

He is the brother-in-law of former Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera. About 15 years ago, Serralta fell under the scrutiny of Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s Office over payments Lopez-Cantera’s prior state House campaign had made to a consulting company Serralta and his wife owned.

An investigation determined that while “it may not look good to campaign contributors of the general public that a company wholly owned by the candidate’s sister and brother-in-law made a profit on the campaign,” the couple had indeed done consulting work for Lopez-Cantera and were innocent of wrongdoing. However, the Miami-Dade Police Department reprimanded Serralta for not notifying it of his side job, according to Florida Bulldog reporting.

More recently, Fernandez Rundle’s Office partnered with Serralta’s office and other law enforcement agencies in a broad effort to locate missing children called “Operation We Will Find You.”

Serralta, a 55-year-old Republican living in South Miami, holds a master’s degree in leadership from Nova Southeastern University and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice studies from Florida International University, whose Board of Trustees may soon select Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez — Lopez-Cantera’s successor — as its new President.

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