A man who fled from Oklahoma after faking his own death in 2012 has been caught living as a college student, enrolled at the State University of New York at Canton.

Anthony Lennon was on Oklahoma’s top ten most wanted list. This story is just crazy.

FOX News reports:

Convicted ‘Ten Most Wanted’ fugitive faked bloody death, resurfaced as student before capture: authorities

A convicted sex offender hailed as one of Oklahoma’s Ten Most Wanted fugitives has been captured after allegedly faking his own death and reportedly enrolling in a New York university.

Anthony Lennon was taken into custody last week in Canton, New York, after nearly 13 years on the run, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

In 2008, Lennon was convicted on charges of child pornography and handed a 20-year suspended sentence.

However, in 2012, authorities began searching for Lennon after learning he was allegedly in possession of additional child pornography, according to officials. Evidence found inside his home reportedly consisted of chat logs, external disks and graphic videos of children, police said.

As authorities closed in on the Super 8 Motel in Moore, Oklahoma, to arrest Lennon on additional charges, they realized that he had “staged an elaborate and bloody abduction and robbery scene, leaving behind falsified evidence to make it appear he had been abducted,” according to officials…

While on the run, Lennon allegedly adopted the alias “Justin Phillips,” and was enrolled in college at the State University of New York at Canton at the time of his arrest, NNY360 reported. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, Lennon had previously earned a master’s degree in computer science and was working to obtain a doctorate at the time of his disappearance.

This video report includes comments from law enforcement officers in Oklahoma:

More from NBC News:

Some leads have appeared over the years, including activity from Lennon’s Amazon account in 2020 in the state of North Carolina. He put a phone charger in the cart, the complaint said. Two years later, someone said they believed they saw Lennon at a convention in the Dallas area.

According to the complaint, Lennon obtained a state ID, birth certificate and enrolled in a university all under a false name. He allegedly made multiple attempts to obtain a passport under an alias, the complaint said.

Lennon has allegedly been living under the alias “Justin Phillips” in the state of New York, the U.S. Marshals Service said. He was arrested and interviewed under the false name, but fingerprints revealed he was really Lennon, according to the agency.

A spokesperson for the State University of New York at Canton confirmed that a student enrolled under the name “Justin Phillips” was arrested Thursday “for crimes committed under a different name in Oklahoma.” The spokesperson also said that he was barred from returning to the university on Friday.

This guy is probably going to spend the rest of his life in prison, and that’s not a bad thing.

Featured image via YouTube.

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