Kansas City, Mo. ? A Kansas City bartender will get a $10,000 reward for turning in a customer whom she recognized as the escaped Minnesota sex offender featured on a segment on “America’s Most Wanted.”

The City Council in St. Peter, Minn., decided this week to pay the reward out of a special fund financed by fines in criminal cases and seizures from investigations.

The tip from the bartender at the Gates Bar-B-Q restaurant in Kansas City led to the arrest earlier this month of Michael Dale Benson.

“I was hoping I would get it,” said Nina, the bartender who does not want her last name published.

Authorities said Benson, 42, and three others escaped from the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center on April 15 after sawing through a metal bar on a security window. The three other men were quickly arrested, but Benson evaded capture until May 2.

He came to Kansas City and met a church organist who took him in, found a job as a construction worker and began to frequent the restaurant where the bartender saw his picture on the popular television show. He remains jailed in Kansas City awaiting extradition.

Benson pleaded guilty in 1989 to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in a rape in Douglas County, Minn., authorities said. After completing his prison term, he was committed to the sex offender program at St. Peter in 1993.

He has been classified as a Level 3 offender, a category for those deemed most likely to re-offend.