Houston man wanted in Florida

HOUSTON — Federal authorities arrested a former Florida sheriff’s deputy they say had been living under an assumed name, having run from a sexual battery charge.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage, Joseph Keenan May, 60, was arrested at his Eagle River home early the morning of June 20. Federal authorities say list May’s Alaska residences as being in Eagle River and Houston.

May allegedly assumed the identity of Michael Camp when he fled Florida, using Camp’s social security number to apply for an Alaska driver’s license in 2009 and for unemployment benefits in 2013.

According to the indictment against May, Camp is actually the identity of May’s stepbrother who died while still in his teens.

“Michael Brent Camp died in 1973, and is buried in Washington County, Pennsylvania,” the indictment states.

The Bradenton Herald in Bradenton, Fla., reports that the original charges against May date back to 1990 — the year his two-year career as a sheriff’s deputy ended after he was arrested for raping a 6-year-old girl.

“According to an arrest document, May had sex with the child on numerous occasions between 1970 and 1977 within Manatee County at several locations,’” the Herald reports.

The newspaper reports that May admitted to some, but not all, of the conduct for which he was charged. His bail was reduced to $5,000 and a trial set for May 1991 but by then he’d blown town. Another warrant was issued in 1991.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the charge May faces in Florida carries the death penalty.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.