Fugitive who stole identity of college grad pleads guilty to fraud

U.S. Fugitive who stole identity of college grad who died in 1975 pleads guilty to fraud By Emily Mae Czachor Emily Mae Czachor News Editor Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She typically covers breaking news, extreme weather and climate. Emily Mae previously wrote for outlets like the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek. Read Full Bio Emily Mae Czachor June 2, 2026 / 11:09 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google A fugitive who stole a college graduate's identity and proceeded to use it for more than 40 years as a way to avoid arrest on an attempted murder charge has now pleaded guilty to fraud, among other charges, federal authorities said.Stephen Craig Campbell, 73, took on the identity of an Arkansas man named Walter Lee Coffman, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Mexico, where Campbell was arrested last year. Coffman had recently graduated from the University of Arkansas with an engineering degree when he died in a car accident in 1975, at just 22, the U.S. attorney's office said. After remaining on the U.S. Marshals' "Most Wanted" list for four decades, for an attempted murder in Wyoming in the early '80s, Campbell was found and arrested on Feb. 19, 2025. He has pleaded guilty to misuse of a passport, possession of false papers to defraud the U.S., aggravated identity theft, and possessing a firearm and ammunition as a fugitive of justice, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Campbell is expected to face 12 years in prison once sentenced.Campbell is originally from Stockton, California, and attended University of Arkansas at the same time as Coffman, CBS Sacramento reported. Authorities said Campbell initially applied for a U.S. passport under Coffman's name in 1984 and went on to renew it multiple times, using his own address and photograph, through at least 2015. Throughout the years Campbell lived under Coffman's identity, he had evaded an outstanding 1983 warrant issued in Wyoming for faili...