Colorado prisoner who escaped in 2018 found at home in Fort Lauderdale neighborhood
An escaped Colorado prisoner avoided capture for more than four years until Tuesday, when federal officials found him at a home in a high-end neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale and arrested him.
U.S. Marshals had been searching for Allen Todd May, 58, since December 2018 when staff at the Federal Correctional Institute in Englewood, Colo., noticed he was gone during an inmate count, the U.S. Marshals Service Denver said in a news release Thursday.
In 2012, May was convicted of mail fraud charges in Texas, where he is from, and sentenced to 20 years. He was transferred to the Colorado prison earlier in the year he escaped, the U.S. Marshals Service Denver said.
While incarcerated, May allegedly continued his illegal activity by purporting himself to be a representative of several companies that were owed oil and gas royalties, filing fraudulent claims to receive the money, according to an indictment. He allegedly used an address of a friend to aid in filing the fraudulent claims and told the friend to open bank accounts in the names of the businesses that were owed the royalties.
May received more than $700,000 from the fraudulent claims between 2016 and late 2018, just before his escape, according to the indictment.
A federal grand jury indicted him in June 2022 on charges of wire fraud and mail fraud in addition to the escape while he was still on the run. U.S. Marshals in September 2022 offered a $5,000 reward for tips that led to his arrest.
Tips led U.S. Marshals to search for May in California, Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas and Florida. One anonymous tipster told them a few months ago that May was possibly using the alias “Carey Bailey” on social media profiles.
That same tipster is who led them to their eventual capture of May, according to the news release.
“On July 25, the same tipster provided a new tip and a photo of who they believed to be May which had been published on the website of the Palm Beach Daily News,” Denver U.S. Marshals said. “This new information, which included a new, previously unknown alias, allowed investigators to develop information about a possible location for May at a penthouse apartment in Palm Beach, Florida,” the release said.
When federal authorities surveilled the luxury apartment Monday, May was no longer there, the release said. They saw his “suspected partner” there Tuesday leaving in a U-Haul truck.
They followed the truck to a home in the area of East Cypress Creek Road and Northeast 18th Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, “less than two miles from the ocean in an area where a large number of homes are valued above $1 million,” officials said. They watched the home until May came outside and arrested him.
He will be taken back to Colorado to face the charges, officials said.
