If you’ve been on the run for nearly two dozen years, maybe sitting front row during a televised Dodgers game is not the best idea.
U.S. Marshals are asking the public’s help in identifying a Los Angeles Dodger fan seen on camera during a televised 2016 home game because they say he closely resembles a long-missing fugitive.
The call for the public’s help comes as the agency has stepped up the 23-year manhunt for John Ruffo, a swindler who fled in 1998 after being convicted in Virginia of a $353 million bank fraud. The ongoing manhunt for Ruffo is the subject of season 2 of the ABC News podcast, Have You Seen This Man?
The man at the Dodger game may be a look-alike, or it may be Ruffo, whom investigators believe has assumed a new identity. Either way, deputies on the case said they would like to know who it was.
Ruffo’s cousin, Carmine Pascale, of New Hampshire, was watching the Dodgers-Red Sox game on television on August 5, 2016, when he said he spotted the familiar-looking man seated four rows behind home plate.
He phoned the tip into the US Marshals, who had placed Ruffalo on the agency’s 15 Most Wanted list.
The ticket holder was unable to be identified, because the coveted seat behind home plate passed through so many hands by the time the person who attended the game sat there.