Fugitive fraudster caught living 'high on the hog' in Florida years after escaping Colorado prison
Allen Todd May vanished from a federal facility in Englewood, Colorado, in December 2018 and was living under an alias on Florida's Gold Coast — Rolex, Mercedes, $1.5 million house — before a tip from a society photo led U.S. Marshals to his door.
Allen Todd May, 58, was arrested by U.S. Marshals at a $1.5 million oceanfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, nearly five years after he was discovered missing from the Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood, Colorado, according to NBC News and Denver7 reporting on the case. May was serving a 20-year sentence for a mail fraud conviction handed down in February 2012 in the Northern District of Texas.
He was found to be missing during a prisoner count on Dec. 21, 2018, per Denver7's account, having been transferred to the Colorado facility the previous January. In the years since, investigators say, May did not lie low: he was living on Florida's Gold Coast under an assumed identity, wearing a Rolex, driving a high-end Mercedes, and moving into a $1.5 million oceanfront home in Fort Lauderdale.
Sourcing on some details of the case is thin. NBC News' report is titled around the phrase "living high on the hog" but the version of the story reviewed for this account did not yield a direct quoted line using that phrase from a named marshal; it is treated here as the outlets' framing of his lifestyle rather than a verified quotation.
The tip that ended it
The break in the case, according to Denver7, came when a tipster spotted May in a published photo from a Palm Beach society event and recognized him. That tip led investigators to a suspected associate, whose movements — including a U-Haul truck driven to the Fort Lauderdale house — brought marshals to the property, where May was arrested as movers unloaded the truck.
The prison fraud allegation
May faces additional accusations tied to his time behind bars: authorities say he fraudulently collected roughly $700,000 in oil and gas royalty claims while still incarcerated, before his escape. He was awaiting extradition back to Colorado at the time of the reporting reviewed here.
What it signals
The case is a reminder that a federal escape does not necessarily mean a fugitive goes underground — May's alleged strategy of high visibility in a wealthy social scene, rather than concealment, is what nearly kept him free for five years, and what ultimately exposed him when a stranger recognized his face in a photograph.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by NBC News and Denver7. It restores a story originally published on this site in 2023; figures are as reported at the time.