A convicted fraudster on the U.S. Marshals’ 15 Most Wanted list may have been seen at a televised 2016 Los Angeles Dodgers game and the agency is now seeking the public's help in finding him.
A fan watching the game from home saw someone resembling John Ruffo, who has been on the run for 23 years after being convicted of a $353 million bank fraud in Virginia. He is believed to have fled with $13 million that was never recovered from the scheme.
Ruffo, now 66, a former computer salesman, was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison in what the U.S. Marshals said was ‘one of the largest bank fraud scams in American history.’
Ruffo’s own counsin Carmine Pascale, of New Hampshire, reported the possible Dodgers sighting to the U.S. Marshals, according to ABC News. He said he saw a familiar face sitting four rows behind home plate while the Dodgers played the Boston Red Sox on August 5, 2016.
US Marshalls seek help identifying a fan (left) at Los Angeles Dodgers game in 2016 that resembles fugitive John Ruffo (right)
A fan watching the Dodger's from home reported seeing a man four rows behind home plate who resembled John Ruffo, a fugitive on the U.S. Marshals’ 15 Most Wanted list
The U.S. Marshals is asking the public for help finding John Ruffo, who has been on the run for 23 years
He was convicted of a $353 million bank fraud and sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison, but fled with $13 million
‘I'm watching and right behind home plate, they did a close up of the batter and there's Johnny,’ he told ABC News. ‘And I said, "Holy Christ, there he is. And I immediately called the Marshals. I froze the frame, kept it right in front of me.’
Ruffo was given a $10 million bond and ordered to report to a federal prison in New Jersey in 1998, but he never showed up. He was last seen the same day in surveillance footage withdrawing money from an ATM in Queens and investigators found that he was driving a car that he parked at John F. Kennedy Airport.
There have been multiple reported sightings of Ruffo since then, but the ATM footage is the last one confirmed. Ruffo’s case will be examined in the upcoming second season of the ABC News podcast, "Have You Seen This Man."
‘The ones that are the worst are when you have no resolution,’ Deputy Marshal Danielle Shimchick, the lead investigator on the Ruffo case, told ABC News. ‘That's what bothers me, is that you just don't know, is that him or not? The Dodgers footage, is that him? Is that Ruffo? Or is it not?’
Pascale said Ruffo was ‘hiding in plain sight.’ he said. ‘Brazen, confident. “They ain't gonna get me. Catch me if you can.”’
