Fugitive’s 23-year flight ends

Monday, Nov. 25, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Federal marshals arrested George I. Norman, 66, on Thursday outside a Knoxville motel. His wife, Donna Sorbo Norman, 36, also was taken into custody.

"There are some estimates that he may be worth $50 million," said Bobby Lloyd, a deputy U.S. marshal in Denver. "They were big high-rollers, country-club types, golf and tennis every day, black-tie affairs," Lloyd told The Knoxville News-Sentinel.

The Normans surrendered to marshals who arrived just as the couple was getting into their car.

"I tell you, he almost seemed relieved," said Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Doug Wiggs. "He was very cooperative, somewhat nervous, but he almost had a sense of relief."

Norman waived his right to a hearing Friday before U.S. District Judge James Jarvis, who ordered him returned to Denver. He was being held without bond in the Knox County Jail.

Norman's flight from justice began on March 13, 1973, when he was supposed to turn himself in the U.S. marshal's office in Denver to begin a two-year sentence for misappropriating more than $500,000 from a Colorado bank.

One of his lawyers -- now U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah -- asked marshals if Norman could make a few final phone calls before surrendering. According to several accounts, Norman and Hatch drove to the office of another lawyer and then Norman drove off, leaving a befuddled Hatch standing on the sidewalk.

Norman surfaced in 1984 in Tampa, Fla., where he apparently met Sorbo. Officials believe he then went to California and Rhode Island before heading south to Dallas and finally to Houston.

The couple went by the names and Social Security numbers of Sorbo's deceased grandparents, Tom and Lin Dangelis, authorities said. Marshals began to close in on the couple after discovering that the Dangelis' Social Security numbers were still being used.

Wiggs said Norman had come to Knoxville to have work done on a motor home.