B.C. FUGITIVE FREED FROM NEW YORK PRISON

A West Vancouver man was released from a New York prison Friday after
serving nine months for a drug crime more than three decades ago.

In 1970, a long-haired, 19-year-old photography student then known as
Christopher Perlstein sold $20 worth of LSD to an undercover cop.

On Friday, a 51-year-old man with short, greying hair walked out of
Woodbourne Correctional Institute hoping to become a legal resident of Canada.

Allen Richardson, the name he assumed after his 1971 escape from a New York
prison work site and illegal entry into Canada, thanked his wife, his
friends, and the members of the public who have supported him during the
last two years.

"That enabled me to hold my head high and maintain some self-esteem and
integrity," he said in an interview with The Vancouver Sun.

"I knew that I was not a rather worthless individual enmeshed in the prison
system, that I had a life that I could maintain some pride in --
accomplishments that were respected by other people."

Declared the New York-born Richardson: "Canada is an exceptionally humane
and compassionate place to live. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."

Richardson spoke to The Sun from a New York City hotel, where he and wife
Amalia were staying. Late Friday, Richardson said he felt "frazzled" after
his release and was looking forward to a soft bed.

After the couple flies back to Vancouver today, Richardson will answer
questions at an airport news conference.

The couple's quiet, community-oriented life evaporated more than two years
ago, when the RCMP arrested him after U.S. authorities were tipped to his
whereabouts.

"I hope I don't carry any bitterness beyond this," he said. "I haven't
spent the last 21U2 years doing what I wished to do, and I'm not saying I
wasn't responsible for it. But I've done what was required of me, and now
I'd like to move forward and be positive, enjoy life in Canada, and resume
being a productive individual."

Amalia Richardson has said her husband told her about his conviction before
their marriage in 1995. But the last nine months haven't been easy for her.

"My mother died in the middle of it," said Amalia, who has breast cancer.
"I've been back to Europe three or four times and it's been tough without
Allen. But I've been very well supported, by friends, Canadians, and
finally the Canadian government."

Last April, Richardson abandoned his attempt to gain refugee status in
Canada and returned to New York to face the U.S. judicial system.

"I'm very proud of Allen to go back," his wife said. "After so many years,
that takes a lot of courage."

Last year, New York prison officials initially sent prisoner 71C0244 -- the
71 refers to 1971 -- to a high-security area of the Downstate Correctional
Facility in Fishkill, N.Y., where Richardson was locked up alone for 22
hours of the day and not allowed any reading material.

He spent the last seven months at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, a
medium-security prison in a rural part of New York State south of the
Catskill Mountains.

"It's a fairly forbidding place when you approach it," Amalia Richardson
said. "Inside, it's not too bad. It's one of these prisons they use for
people who are on their way out of the system -- a much better atmosphere
than the other place [Downstate], which was pretty horrifying."

Allen Richardson said he read news magazines and listened daily to the CBC
and BBC radio, trying to keep in touch with the world outside.

He described Downstate as a prison with an "aggressive environment," but
said guards kept a tight lid on problems. Woodbourne was quieter, but
Richardson lived in a dormitory with 70 men.

"You certainly didn't get any privacy, but it was basically a benign,
non-threatening environment," he said. "One had to treat your fellow inmate
with respect, and, in return, be respected."

In 1971, Richardson began serving his drug sentence in Attica State Prison,
one of New York's most infamous prisons. He witnessed the murder of another
inmate and sought the protection of a group of political radicals led by
Sam Melville, who had bombed a bank.

"I was forced to defend myself from the attentions of those who, attracted
by my youth, wished to rape and sodomize me, and those who merely wished to
brutalize me for the sake of whatever unknown status this conferred in the
hierarchy of prison life, whether they be guards or inmates," Richardson
said in an affidavit.

Richardson said Friday he wasn't assaulted or threatened during the last
nine months in prison, but he doesn't regret the decision he made to escape
in 1971, because he was terrified at Attica.

"To this day, I've had to face the consequences," he said.

Shortly after Richardson was transferred to a work camp, a revolt at Attica
led partly by Melville ended with the deaths of 43 prisoners. Guards told
Richardson he would be sent back to Attica, so the terrified young man
walked away from a forest work site near the international border and
illegally entered Canada.

An anti-war group in Canada sheltered Richardson and gave him a false
identity. Immigration Canada believes he obtained a false passport by
locating the death records of an Allen Richardson.

Between 1975 and 1980, he worked in Vancouver as a darkroom technician,
then built musical instruments. Since 1982, he's worked at TRIUMF, Canada's
national laboratory of particle and nuclear physics, at the south campus of
the University of B.C.

Richardson became a West Van director of the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, a founder of the Pacific Bluegrass and Heritage
Society, and a president of the Vintage Racing Club of B.C.

But in 1998, an informant told U.S. officials where he lived, and the RCMP
arrested him at work. A Canadian immigration inquiry later ordered
Richardson out of Canada, because people convicted of crimes cannot legally
enter the country without special permission. Last year, an official with
the federal citizenship and immigration department signed a one-year permit
that allows Richardson to re-enter Canada after serving his prison term in
the U.S., on the understanding he will complete his parole in Canada.

Aleksandar Stojicevic, Richardson's immigration lawyer, said Richardson
isn't entirely free, because the B.C. correctional service can still impose
reporting requirements, such as requiring him to report weekly to a parole
officer and forbidding him to leave the country until his parole expires.
According to inmate information that the New York department of
correctional services posts on its Web site, Richardson became eligible for
parole today, and his parole expires on March 24, 2004.

Next Friday, when Richardson is scheduled to appear at an immigration
hearing in Vancouver, Stojicevic hopes the board will grant Richardson the
right to remain in Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada official Janice Fergusson said a person
with a criminal record can seek a kind of pardon -- and offer evidence that
they haven't committed other similar crimes -- so the legal barrier to
permanent residency status is removed.

Richardson's job as a senior research technician at TRIUMF is still open.

"There's no reason not to take him back once he's resolved everything,"
TRIUMF spokesman Jim Hanlon said Friday.