People involved in the civil lawsuits described Mr. Thomas as a former employee of several well-known financial firms and the onetime chief of international fixed-income sales at a Spanish bank.

But Ms. Pirro, a former county judge, onetime chief of the county domestic violence bureau, retained her "Gunsmoke" gravitas.

The onetime chief of staff to Mike Espy, the former Agriculture Secretary, was indicted today on charges that he had taken money from old friends seeking Government farm subsidies and then lied about it.

Kenneth D. Rice, 48, onetime chief of the unit, Enron Broadband Services, was sentenced yesterday in Houston by Judge Vanessa D. Gilmore of Federal District Court.

He was replaced by Nikolai Bordyuzha, a onetime chief of the federal border guards who most recently was secretary of Mr. Yeltsin's top advisory body, the security council.

On Friday, it was John H. Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire and President Bush's onetime chief of staff.

Éamonn O'Doherty (1939 - 28 October 1999) was an Irish republican and onetime chief of staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

So, too, did defense lawyers, with the onetime chief of Mr. Simpson's legal team, Robert L. Shapiro, criticizing his successor.

But Keith Hellawell, Prime Minister Tony Blair's onetime antidrug chief, said the new policy "would virtually be decriminalization of cannabis, and this is, quite frankly, giving out the wrong message."

The case is made mainly by former Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe officers who, viewers will not be surprised to notice, take pains to distance themselves from their onetime chief.