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Police Say Man Was Fugitive For 20 Years

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 28, 2007

ORLANDO - A fugitive on the run for 20 years was captured Friday at his job - two blocks from a police substation, police said.

Timothy Scott, 53, had been working as a cook at Johnson's Diner for 19 months under one of his five aliases, according to police.

He was sentenced in 1974 to life in prison for an armed robbery in Clearwater. He had been missing since 1987, when he walked away from a work-release program. Authorities used Scott's aliases to track him.

'It looks like he was trying to make an honest living. But you have to be accountable to what the court rules,' Orlando police Sgt. Barb Jones said.

Police said Scott told his wife and two daughters, who were 5 and 6 years old when he escaped, that he had been released from prison. No one in his family or at his job knew he was on the run, according to police.

'He was pretty much in the clear for 20 years,' Jones said.

Scott was being held in Orange County Jail. He faces his previous sentence, plus a new charge of escape.

The Associated Press

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