A man who absconded from parole in California 12 years ago after shooting a man has been arrested in Cut Bank, where authorities say he’s been working harvests for a decade.

Sgt. Tom Siefert of the Glacier County Sheriff’s Office said a fugitive task force in California learned Robert Lewis Crose, 47, was working in the Cut Bank area from updates to Crose’s Facebook page.

He was on parole following prison for a 1996 incident in Ventura, Calif., in which Crose, then the owner of an appliance store, used a shotgun to fend off an intruder armed with a rubber hose, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times.

He was convicted of making a terrorist threat and another gun violation, served less than a year in prison before being released on parole, had his parole revoked, and was paroled again in October 1998.

California authorities sent pictures of Crose to Montana, which police and deputies handed out around town Friday. Saturday around 11:30 a.m., they got a call saying Crose was in a local casino, where he was arrested without incident.

“I talked to him, he said he’d worked cutting up here, harvesting, for the last 10 years,” Siefert said.

Several of his recent Facebook postings give a glimpse of his recent life. A couple of times, he mentioned snow. Oct. 24, he wrote, “Cutting barley in the rocks on the border sucks be so glad to be done.”

And Oct. 26, he wrote that he won $600 playing keno.

The morning of Oct. 28, he wrote that a water line had frozen in the sub-20 degree weather. When a friend asked where he was, he responded, “Cut Bank.”

“I said, listen, man, you’ve got to stay off Facebook,” Siefert said. “He kind of hung his head and laughed.”

It’s not the first time criminals have given themselves away online in Glacier County. A few years ago, Siefert said, a local youth posted videos of himself smoking marijuana on YouTube, leading to a search warrant and arrest.

Crose is in Glacier County Jail as California initiates the extradition process, Siefert said.

LINK TO PHOTO

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Article/201009115795324