VANCOUVER MAN GIVES UP FIGHT OVER DEPORTATION

Will Return To U.S. And Jail Time For His 1971 Drug Offence

VANCOUVER (CP) - A Vancouver man who escaped from a prison camp in New York
state nearly 30 years ago has abandoned his attempt to gain refugee status
and will return to the U.S. to serve out his time, says his lawyer.

Allen Richardson, a 50-year-old lab technician at the University of British
Columbia's Triumf research facility, was ordered out of Canada last year
but he and his wife, who has breast cancer, had fought the order.

A hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board was scheduled for Tuesday
but Richardson asked that the hearing be cancelled, lawyer Michael Bolton
said Sunday.

"He has decided that he wants to have some finality to his plight so he
intends to return voluntarily to Rochester," said Bolton. "Obviously we're
hopeful that (U.S. authorities) will see fit to house him in a reasonable
place where he's not in danger."

Canadian immigration officials said Richardson will receive a minister's
permit that will allow him to move back to Canada following his sentence,
added Bolton.

Amalia Richardson will stay in Vancouver, close to treatment for her
cancer, Bolton said.

Richardson could be locked up as long as 28 months, he added.

Richardson's legal troubles go back to 1971, when, as a college student
named Christopher Perlstein, he received a four-year sentence for selling
$20 worth of LSD to an undercover police officer.

Richardson was sent to Attica, a maximum-security prison near Buffalo,
N.Y., before being transferred to a work camp near the Canadian border. He
said he was terrified because camp guards threatened to send him back to
Attica.

He walked away, and set up his new identity in Canada.

In 1998 someone tipped off U.S. authorities about Richarson's past and his
true identity.