ST. LOUIS • A federal judge ruled this week that the FBI did not need a warrant to surreptitiously install a GPS tracking device on a St. Louis City Treasurer's Office employee accused of holding a no-show job.

Lawyers for Fred Robinson claimed that the GPS tracking results should be tossed out for various reasons, including that agents failed to get a warrant and that the tracking violated his Constitutional rights.

U.S. Magistrate Judge David Noce disagreed in a ruling released Tuesday, saying that various appellate courts had all found the use of the tracking devices legal. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering the issue, however.

Federal prosecutors say Robinson stole more than $250,000 of public money from the now defunct Paideia Academy charter school to start a day-care business and took as much as $175,000 from his no-show job in Treasurer Larry C. Williams' office.

Robinson also failed to win dismissal of four counts of the indictment and failed in his attempt to get his trial split into two parts, so jurors aren't prejudiced by hearing allegations involving unrelated charges.

Robinson was indicted in September on one count of wire fraud and seven counts of federal program theft.

Robinson has denied those allegations and pleaded not guilty. He was in federal court this morning for a hearing called to determine if he makes too much money to be represented by public defenders, but the resolutions of that issue has been postponed.