Joseph May is a former Manatee County Sheriff’s Office deputy who:
And Joseph May found himself back before a judge on Monday, May 18.
He will be returning to prison for the crime that started it all.
At a plea hearing before Manatee County Circuit Court Judge Frederick Mercurio, May received a sentence of 13 years for a crime dating back at least 50 years.
As part of the plea arrangement, the State Attorney’s Office agreed to amend the capital sexual battery charge to a lewd, lascivious or indecent assault or act upon or in the presence of a child, which is a second-degree felony.
After being captured in Alaska in 2014 and arrested on multiple federal charges related to his abscondment, May was released from prison in September 2024 and extradited to Manatee County to face the 1990 sex charge.
As part of the sentence, he received credit for time served and will likely spend the next 11 years in prison.
May was a patrol officer for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office from 1987 until Aug. 18, 1990, when he resigned amid an investigation into “sexual misconduct with a minor,” according to Herald-Tribune archives.
Investigators alleged that May molested a girl between the time she was 6 and 13 years old in the 1970s, archives show.
May was arrested in Alabama in October 1990 when he was 36 years old, records show, and he was returned to Manatee County, where a judge reduced his bond from $25,000 to $5,000.
After bonding out, May failed to appear for a court hearing in 1991 and disappeared.
In 1993, a federal warrant was issued for his arrest.
By then, May was already living 5,000 miles away in Fairbanks, Alaska, and was using the name “Michael Camp” – the same name as that of his dead stepbrother, who died as a teenager in 1973 and is buried in Pennsylvania.
Using Camp’s name, May later moved to Eagle River, a suburb just north of Anchorage.
According to a 2014 Herald-Tribune story, May married, had two children and owned a computer repair store.
“He pretty much seemed like a family man,” April Eichhorn, who lived next door to May for six years, told the Herald-Tribune in 2014.
“I never had any clue that he had anything weird going on.”
After 23 years, May’s past caught up with him.
Acting on a tip, the FBI located May, then 60 years old, in Eagle River.
He was arrested for eight felonies, including unlawful flight, identity theft, illegal possession of firearms and possession of child pornography.
When May was arrested, he was found to be in possession of at least nine hand grenades and an exploding arrow, according to the United States Attorney’s Office in Alaska.
FBI agents also recovered journal writings authored by May, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
According to a press release, May’s writings expressed hatred for Muslims and for the president of the United States – and they also made references to taking violent actions against the people he opposed.
At May’s sentencing in 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason said she found May’s writings “disturbing” and indicated a “real possibility” existed that he intended to use the weapons to inflict violence on others.
Gleason also described May’s interest in child pornography as “perverse.”
May was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison.
Records show his sentence ended in September 2024, and he was then extradited to Manatee County to face the capital sexual battery charge.
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Former Manatee County deputy who fled to Alaska sentenced to prison
Reporting by Chris Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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