Back in 1990, a deputy sheriff in Manatee County, Florida (Bradenton) was arrested for raping a six-year-old girl almost 20 years earlier. He fled to Alaska in 1991 just before he was due to stand trial. Late Friday, the FBI arrested him at his home in Alaska after it emerged he had been living under the name of his late stepbrother.
The FBI early Friday arrested Joseph Keenan May, 60, at his home in Eagle River, Alaska. May had been the subject of a federal warrant charging unlawful flight to avoid prosecution since 1993, according to a news release.
"According to the indictment, May has been living under the identity of a stepbrother, Michael Camp, who died in his teens in the 1970s in Pennsylvania," the release states. "The indictment charges two counts of unlawful use of a Social Security number, stemming from May's use of Camp's name and number to apply for an Alaska's driver's license in 2009 and unemployment benefits in 2013."
May also is charged with aggravated identify theft.
May is currently being held without bail. He's due to go to trial in August, and faces 12 years in prison if convicted on the federal charges. The rape charges in Florida carry a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
According to KTUU-TV in Anchorage, he stayed under the radar by working at jobs that didn't require detailed background checks. The Anchorage Daily News reports that he lived in Houston (in the Mat-Su Valley) and Fairbanks as well as Eagle River. However, the Social Security Administration recently caught on to the fraud, and quickly dispatched an FBI tactical team to Eagle River.
In Florida, May is accused of raping a girl several times from 1970 to 1977. He was arrested when this finally came to light, but was released after a judge lowered his bail.
This really makes me nervous--were any girls harmed in Alaska during this time? I hope not. Hopefully the family of the Florida victim will finally get some closure--they deserve it after four decades.