Fugitive lived as SUNY Canton scholar with hope of going to MIT – NBC Los Angeles

Rashid Aidun final noticed the promising engineering scholar he knew as Justin Phillips every week in the past within the materials science class he teaches at a university campus in New York’s North Nation.

Nothing appeared out of the peculiar for the coed, who had a brief record of different faculties he hoped to switch to that included Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, mentioned Aidun, who was his advisor.

The following day, authorities introduced the coed’s actual identify is Anthony Michael Lennon and he’d been captured after greater than a decade on the run. Lennon, 44, was accused of staging a bloody abduction scene at an Oklahoma lodge in 2012 and disappearing after he was charged with baby pornography, federal authorities mentioned.

Lennon, who had beforehand pleaded responsible to baby pornography expenses after a good friend discovered 50 gigabytes of kid intercourse abuse pictures on his pc, was added to Oklahoma’s “Ten Most Wished Checklist” in July.

“It’s an unbelievable scenario,” mentioned Aidun, an affiliate professor within the faculty of engineering expertise on the State College of New York’s Canton campus.

“Everyone seems to be in shock,” he mentioned.

It isn’t clear if Lennon has a lawyer to talk on his behalf in regards to the 2012 allegations. An lawyer representing him on federal expenses of failing to register as a intercourse offender in New York didn’t reply to a request for remark Thursday.

A girl who answered the cellphone at a quantity listed beneath his mom’s identify declined to remark.

Lennon is in custody in Syracuse and has a listening to scheduled for Nov. 19 through which authorities must show his identification, mentioned Johnny L. Kuhlman, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Oklahoma. He famous that authorities recognized him partially by way of fingerprints.

When Lennon was arrested Oct. 30 at a grocery retailer in Canton, a city of almost 7,000 close to the Canadian border, he had a state-issued identification card with the identify Justin Phillips, Kulhman mentioned. New York State Police are investigating how he was capable of acquire the cardboard, he mentioned.

The arrest got here after years of failed efforts to find Lennon, Kulhman mentioned. Ideas had taken investigators to Nevada and Tennessee, he mentioned, however in the end led to dead-ends.

“This was yet another of these leads that clearly turned out profitable for us,” he mentioned.

Investigators have many questions on what he’s been doing for 13 years, he added. “We’d like to ultimately speak to him and get these solutions. However after all, that’s as much as him — whether or not or not he ever chooses to reveal that.”

Among the many issues he seems to have achieved is enroll within the engineering science program on the SUNY campus within the fall of 2024, the college mentioned in an announcement. He lived off-campus.

Aidun mentioned Lennon by no means disclosed something about his previous, and the professor mentioned he by no means requested about it.

“That’s not my job to ask private questions,” he mentioned. “I solely gave him educational recommendation.”

Along with the prison allegations, Aidun mentioned he was additionally unaware of Lennon’s obvious educational background. When he vanished in 2012, Kuhlman mentioned, authorities realized that he had a grasp’s diploma in pc science and was working towards acquiring a doctorate.

It isn’t clear the place he obtained the diploma or was attending faculty, Kuhlman mentioned.

Aidun described Lennon as a “excellent scholar” who earned all A’s. He was in his third semester of a four-semester switch program and needed to maneuver to Clarkson, a close-by non-public college, or M.I.T., Aidun mentioned.

Aidun mentioned he noticed nothing within the scholar’s conduct to make him assume that he was something however a “good lively scholar” who helped others. Aidun mentioned he realized of Lennon’s arrest on Monday from different college students in this system.

“For the primary couple of minfutes I didn’t know the right way to react,” he mentioned. “It was stunning.”

In an announcement, the college mentioned that Lennon was suspended on Oct. 31 and barred from returning to campus. He was recognized to the college solely as Justin Phillips and not one of the faculty’s information indicated a previous identification, in response to the assertion.