Fugitive On Run For Nearly 50 Years Faces Extradition Hearing In Connecticut

DANBURY, Conn. (CBSNewYork) -- A Connecticut man who escaped from a Georgia prison 48 years ago faces the prospect of living out the rest of his life behind bars.

Robert Stackowitz, 71, is set to appear in court for an extradition hearing Tuesday.

Decades ago, Stackowitz stole $9 from a man in Georgia and the keys to his truck. He served two years of a 17-year sentence before breaking out of a prison work camp in August 1968.

Stackowitz assumed the name Robert Gordon and settled in the tiny rural Connecticut town of Sherman, where he worked at car dealerships, taught shop at a local high school and repaired boats at his home for friends and neighbors. He said he didn't think too much about getting caught.

But when Stackowitz filed for Social Security benefits, prison officials got wind of it and now he's fighting an attempt to return him to Georgia to serve out his term.

His lawyer, Norman Pattis, said Stackowitz has been a model citizen and the return to prison could kill him.

"It might, I mean quite literally, and that's what the fight is about," Pattis said. "He's been punished, he's been deterred, he's lived a blameless life for 50 years."

Stackowitz said he is battling bladder cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and that extradition would be a death sentence.

Despite his health concerns, Georgia officials want him back.

"The crime that he committed was a fairly serious crime, but I think if he's truly wanting to travel the straight and narrow road, then it's best for him to come back and try to handle these charges appropriately," Robert Jones, warden for the Carroll County Correction Institution, said in May.