Police find fugitive through Facebook

LOCKPORT, N.Y. (WIVB) - It's rule number one when you're a fugitive on the run: don't tell the police where you are.

Christopher Crego was wanted by Lockport police and made a major Facebook faux-pas.

Capt. Richard Podgers, Chief of Detectives of the Lockport Police. said, "He may not be the dumbest. But I would say it was foolish at best."

Crego left town before he was scheduled to be sentenced on an assault charge. But police found him easily thanks to his posting on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

"In this case his whole site was open. He didn't have it locked down to friends," said Capt. Podgers.

Capt. Podgers says he was tipped off about Crego's online postings revealing a ton of information.

"If you're going to run, you should at least hide," said Capt. Podgers.

Crego even posted this newspaper article profiling him as a ten most wanted from the area.

Capt. Podgers said, "In this case we had a picture of him with his vital statistics. And he got that from the newspaper and either scanned it or downloaded it from the Lockport Paper."

The 39-year-old gave police a bonanza of information, including the tattoo shop where he was working in Terre Haute, Indiana. He even boasted about the fact that Niagara County authorities would never come get him. But earlier this week he was arrested and will eventually be brought back to face the music.

Capt. Podgers said, "He'll be sentenced by a City Court judge for his assault. The one he left for. They'll be able to continue on to the DWI that he jumped bail on."