FUGITIVE ORDERED BACK TO JAIL IN N.Y.

Longtime B.C. Resident Loses Gamble For Mercy

Allen Richardson, who fled to B.C. nearly 30 years ago after escaping a U.S.
prison, lost the final round of a gamble for mercy from New York's justice
system Wednesday.

Appearing in a Rochester courtroom, Richardson was quickly ordered back to
prison to finish a four-year term for selling $20 worth of LSD in 1971.

The order ended a faint hope that the 50-year-old lab technician's exemplary
life in Canada had paid back a sentence stiffer than judges would likely
hand out today.

But his lawyers said they will now take the fight for his early release to
New York's state parole board.

And they say their chances at convincing the parole board Richardson's case
qualifies as an "unusual and exceptional" circumstance that would qualify
for leniency have been bolstered by the judge's own views about the quality
of the more than 150 character reference letters submitted to court.

Were he coming before him now as a newly minted felon, Monroe County Court
Judge John J. Connell said, Richardson would likely receive probation.

As if to underscore the public image he has developed as someone who has
paid his debt to society, his first concern after being ordered back to jail
was to make sure his wife Amalia, who has twice had breast cancer, would be
all right.

"We just said, 'Chin up' to each other and hugged each other and said we'd
try to talk on the telephone tomorrow," Amalia Richardson said after she
watched her husband led away.

"He's a good citizen and a good person," she said. "Sometimes you have to go
backwards and say, 'I did something wrong and there's some kind of
punishment that has to be paid.' But I hope it's minimal for him, because he
has already suffered tremendously."

Richardson, who escaped from prison in 1971 after serving three months of a
four-year sentence for selling LSD in his dormitory room at Rochester
Institute of Technology, had hoped Connell would show mercy and reduce the
sentence.

But the judge refused, saying he found it was a lawful sentence.

To allow Richardson to escape serving the rest of his time would be to
reward him for escaping and encourage other felons to flee, the judge said.

Before Connell made his decision, Richardson said he had changed from a
radical youth who fervently opposed the war in Vietnam and was called a
"wide-eyed, open-mouthed revolutionary" by an RIT dean.

"I only hope that in the past 30 years of life . . . I've been a good man, a
just man," he said.

He was transferred to a processing prison at Fishkill, New York, where he
will spend a week being assessed. His wife will remain in New York for 10
days until he is moved to a permanent location, said his Vancouver lawyer,
Michael Bolton.

Richardson built a new life in Vancouver after he escaped from a New York
prison camp after being told he would be returned to Attica Correctional
Facility, a maximum-security prison that had just undergone a major riot
that killed 43 people.

He went to work at the TRIUMF facility at the University of B.C., married
and became an active supporter of several groups, including the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

New York authorities caught up with him in 1998 after Canadian immigration
authorities were told of his old identity. Last November, Connell refused to
excuse Richardson from serving the rest of his sentence. The fugitive later
gave up a bid for refugee status, saying the fight was putting too much
strain on himself and his wife, who has been fighting cancer and needs to
stay close to facilities in B.C.

Richardson could be eligible for parole in less than six months and will
probably be helped by the glowing letters of endorsement, his New York-based
lawyer, Michael Kennedy said.

Bolton said they would begin the process immediately to ask the New York
parole board to cut Richardson's time given the unusual circumstances and
his client's own long-term attempt at rehabilitation.

"The judge's own comments about him, and the overwhelming number of comments
and letters from people who support Allen put this into the category of
unusual and exceptional cases," Bolton said. "We're hopeful the parole board
will see it that way."

Friends and associates of Richardson were shocked at the judge's decision to
put him back in jail, and offered words of support.

"We will help him fill out his time in jail by assuring him he has a job at
TRIUMF when he returns," said TRIUMF spokesman Jim Hanlon, who added that
Richardson was well-regarded by his colleagues.

"We're very upset he's having to face such a severe penalty," said Steven
Huddart, a spokesman for the SPCA. "It does come as a shock that he's been
sent back to jail. He did the honorable thing in returning, and the humane
thing would have been to return him to his life, his community, his wife and
his job."

Canadian immigration officials have said Richardson will receive a
minister's permit allowing him to return to Canada once he finishes his
sentence.