Arthur Gerald Jones, a father of three, went missing in May 1979 after losing his job as a commodities broker and struggling to pay gambling losses, including $30,000 from a single basketball match.
Mr Jones, then 40, “was not himself” in the weeks before his disappearance, his wife Joanne told local reporters at the time, and was particularly “jittery” after a friend and former colleague was murdered.
The FBI later disclosed they had investigated Mr Jones for possible links to organised crime in Chicago. His wife said she thought he may have carried out errands for local mobsters.
In 1986 he was declared dead, and his wife and children collected about $47,000 in benefits. It is claimed that they never heard from him again.
But Mr Jones, 72, was found last week in a Nevada bookmakers, where he is said to have worked for a decade. He was arrested and has been charged with crimes including fraud, burglary and indentity theft.
His current girlfriend, Patricia Baal, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “We’ve been together 22 years, and he’s been very loving and respectful to me and my family. And I love him. And everything’s fine.”
State prosecutors said in an affidavit that Mr Jones had admitted that he “left in 1979 without telling anyone and has to date made no contact with anyone from his past”.
He allegedly told investigators he bought a fake identity for $800 under the name Joseph Richard Sandelli. He moved to Florida, where he was arrested three times under the name “Richard Lage”.
He is then said to have moved to California, being arrested several more times, before settling in Las Vegas in 1988. He was arrested once again in 1992 under the name of Sandelli, the affidavit states.
Mr Jones was discovered after a complaint about his potentially fraudulent use of a Social Security number was investigated by the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles.
His lawyer, Stephen Stein, has said he has been released on $20,000 bail. He is due to appear in court on August 23. Mr Jones’s wife Joanne Esplin, who has since remarried, could not be reached for comment.
Source: MailOnline
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