FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Colorado federal prison escapee’s nearly five years on the lam came to an end Tuesday, after authorities captured him in Fort Lauderdale.
It appears Allen Todd May, 58, was living a lavish lifestyle in South Florida while — successfully, for a time — trying to duck authorities.
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They say the convicted fraudster was caught at a $1.5 million Fort Lauderdale home near East Cypress Creek Road and Northeast 18th Avenue and had possibly been living at a Palm Beach penthouse.
May was originally sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after being convicted of mail fraud in Texas, but authorities accused him of continuing to scheme while behind bars at the low-security Federal Correctional Institute in Englewood, Colorado, near Denver.
They said from at least mid-2016 to late 2018, May “identified several business entities that were owed unclaimed oil and gas royalties and then filed fraudulent documents to act as the representative of those companies to claim the oil and gas royalties for himself,” obtaining more than $700,000 in the process. A federal grand jury indicted him in that case on June 22, 2022.
Authorities noticed May was missing after a Dec. 21, 2018 prisoner count and spent the following years chasing down numerous leads across multiple states, they said.
“One tipster, who chose to submit anonymously, began providing information to the U.S. Marshals in May about potential online profiles and websites which May was possibly using under the alias of ‘Cary Bailey,’” the U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release. “Investigators aggressively followed up on the information provided but were never able to pin down a location for May.”
That same tipster, however, was able to give them a solid lead on June 25.
That tipster noticed a photo of a man suspected to be May, using the name “Jacob Turner,” taken at a society function in Palm Beach and published in the Palm Beach Daily News.
Authorities were able to develop information about the Palm Beach penthouse and surveilled it Monday and saw no signs of May, officials said.
However, on Tuesday, they saw May’s suspected partner leaving the house in a U-Haul rental truck, following it down to the home in Fort Lauderdale, authorities said.
“After additional surveillance at the new residence, the Florida investigators finally observed a man come out of the residence who they believed to be May,” the news release states. “While movers were unloading the truck, Deputies and (task force officers) approached the house where they contacted and placed May into custody.”
District of Colorado U.S. Marshal Kirk Taylor thanked the tipster for “the information they provided that directly led to the arrest of this unorthodox fugitive.”
He was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail and appeared in court Wednesday, where a federal judge ordered him to be detained and transported back to Colorado.