Facebook leads authorities to Calif. parole jumper

[November 05, 2010]  HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- A man who absconded from parole in California 12 years ago has been arrested in northern Montana after disclosing his location in an update on his Facebook page.

A fugitive task force in California learned that Robert Lewis Crose, 47, was working in northern Montana after he complained about the cold weather, Glacier County sheriff's Sgt. Tom Siefert told the Independent Record.

Crose's Facebook page includes an Oct. 28 posting complaining that his "water line froze even with heat tape and wrap" after the temperature fell to 20 degrees below zero. When someone asked where he was at, Crose responded with a post that said "Cut Bank," a small, windswept town just south of the Canadian border.

Crose was convicted of making a terrorist threat and a gun violation for using a sawed-off shotgun to fend off an intruder at his appliance store in Ventura, Calif., in 1996. He served less than a year in prison and was paroled. Los Angeles Times reports say he was returned to prison for a parole violation and paroled again in October 1998.

California authorities sent pictures of Crose to Montana, which officers distributed around Cut Bank on Friday. Shortly before noon Saturday, officers got a call that said Crose was at a local casino.

"I talked to him, he said he'd worked cutting up here, harvesting, for the last 10 years," Siefert said.

His Facebook posts include his recent meals and that it snowed and he won $600 playing keno on Oct. 26.

Crose is in the Glacier County jail as California initiates the extradition process, Siefert said.

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Information from: Independent Record, http://www.helenair.com/

[Associated Press]

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