A man from New York City, who had been on the run for nearly a year, was arrested last month after an officer working on his case recognized him while on vacation at Disney World.
In what can be described as a stroke of improbable luck, Jeff Andre, a federal postal inspector, spotted a familiar tattoo while vacationing with his family at Disney World on October 20. He and his family were exploring Disney’s Animal Kingdom when he recognized a man who had been evading arrest since last November.
Quashon Burton, 31, fled his home in Brooklyn late last year after being accused of fraudulently acquiring Covid-19 relief funds by impersonating four people.
Andre was the officer who signed the criminal complaint against Burton in 2021. Andre recognized Burton’s unique neck tattoo of the letter ‘H’ in the middle of thousands of people who visited Disney World daily.
The complaint, filed in a New York District Court, laid out the damning case against the fugitive.
It outlined how Burton stole the identities of four different people and used their personal information to take government loans. Burton took advantage of the government Covid-19 relief funds meant for struggling businesses to get through the pandemic in 2020 and fraudulently obtained forgivable loans amounting to $150,000.
According to court documents, Burton accessed the money through ATMs and bought orders from a post office in New York after the loans were approved.
The federal court documents said that Burton stole other people’s identities to create fake emails, bank accounts and cards, and identification documents. He used the stolen identification information to create a complex web of identities to mask his criminal activities, making his crimes difficult for investigators to uncover.
The prosecutors also noted that Burton had become masterful and skilled in hiding his true identity to dodge the law and was willing to lie to the police about his identity to avoid being arrested.
Arresting Burton proved to be quite tricky. Police officers went to Burton’s home in Brooklyn, New York November 29, 2021, to arrest him, but they found that the man had already fled.
United States Postal Inspection Service officers visited his home two more times, and on one of their visits, Burton’s mother informed them that he had no intention of surrendering. He was declared a fugitive at that point.
During the 11 months he was a fugitive, Burton continued using different fake identities, including the one he used to visit Disney World.
Andre, the postal inspector, recognized Burton’s neck tattoo, that was written in cursive letters, at the Animal Kingdom at around 3:00 pm local time on October 20. He then contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and informed them that he had seen a fugitive inside the park.
The police used a photo of the fugitive to confirm his identity before confronting him an hour later at a bus stop outside Disney World, where two family members accompanied him.
Burton, who resisted arrest, declined to provide the deputies with his identification. Deputies charged him with resisting arrest and later handed him over to federal agents.
Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Burton was an extreme flight risk and would be held without bail until his trial.