Georgia

Lawyer: 48-year fugitive in poor health, seeks commutation

Associated Press
Published | Updated

This undated photo released by the Georgia Department of Corrections shows Robert Stackowitz, 71, arrested Monday, May 9, 2016 by U.S. Marshals and Connecticut State Police in Sherman, Conn., 48 years after escaping from a Georgia prison work camp. (Georgia Department of Corrections via AP) (The Associated Press)

This 1966 photo released by the Georgia Department of Corrections shows Robert Stackowitz, arrested Monday, May 9, 2016 by U.S. Marshals and Connecticut State Police in Sherman, Conn., 48 years after escaping from a Georgia prison work camp. (Georgia Department of Corrections via AP) (The Associated Press)

This photo released by the Connecticut Department of Correction shows Robert Stackowitz, 71, arrested Monday, May 9, 2016 by U.S. Marshals and Connecticut State Police in Sherman, Conn., 48 years after escaping from a Georgia prison work camp. (Connecticut Department of Correction via AP) (The Associated Press)

A lawyer for a Connecticut man who spent 48 years on the lam after escaping from prison says his client is in poor health and he will ask Georgia officials to commute his 17-year robbery sentence.

Seventy-one-year-old Robert Stackowitz was arrested Monday at his home in rural Sherman after his Social Security application turned up a fugitive warrant. He escaped in 1968 from a prison work camp in Carrolton, Georgia. He's now detained on $75,000 bail.

Stackowitz's lawyer, Norman Pattis, told The Associated Press on Friday that his client suffers from heart failure, bladder cancer and other ailments and that sending him back to Georgia to serve the remainder of his sentence would amount to a death sentence.

Pattis plans to ask Georgia officials to commute Stackowitz's sentence.