HAUNTED BY A CRIME

Decades After Fleeing Term, Man Headed To Prison

MONTREAL - An American prison escapee - who for nearly three decades has led
a life of hard work, devoted marriage, and community service in Canada -
surrendered yesterday in his home state, pleading to no avail with a New
York judge for leniency so that he might care for his cancer-stricken wife.
Instead, the 50-year-old physics researcher was ordered to serve more than
three years remaining on a prison sentence for selling $20 worth of LSD
while he was a university student.

The man, who today calls himself Allen H. Richardson, had his secret
shattered when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police acted on a tip and arrested
him at his laboratory at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver,
where colleagues and friends admired him as a top technician, loving husband
of a desperately ill wife, and community-spirited citizen.
Saying the case ''brings me no happiness,'' Monroe County Court Judge John
J. Connell ordered Richardson back to prison for the rest of his sentence,
despite the life he has led and the seeming triviality of the original
offense.

Richardson is almost certain to remain in prison for at least a year, during
which time his wife may die.

Rather than wage a prolonged battle to stay in Canada, Richardson - whose
true name is Christopher Perlstein - crossed into the United States
yesterday for the first time in 29 years.

''I just want this to end,'' Richardson said in an interview after deciding
to return. ''The sooner I finish with this, the sooner I can be back with my
wife.''

Said his Canadian wife, Amalia Richardson, who suffers from recurrent breast
cancer: ''This has been ruining our lives. We wake up with cold sweat and
nightmares. It's like living with a guillotine over your head.''

New York authorities described Richardson as just another fugitive from
justice. It was in 1970 that Richardson, then a 19-year-old student at the
Rochester Institute of Technology, sold seven tabs of LSD to an undercover
police officer on campus.

His sentence: Four years imprisonment at Attica state prison.
By that day's standards, it was a harsh sentence, and perhaps it reflected
Richardson's participation in anti-Vietnam War protests on the conservative
campus as much as the tiny drug sale. A pre-sentence report described
Richardson/Perlstein as a ''wide-eyed, open-mouthed revolutionary'' because
of his antiwar activities, although he had no previous criminal history.

In 1971, after six horrific weeks behind the steel bars and electric wire of
the notorious correctional facility, he got a break - temporary transfer to
a minimum-security work camp just days before Attica exploded into America's
bloodiest prison riot.

But when a guard told him he was about to be returned to the inferno, the
frightened young man did another stupid thing, although it may have saved
his life.

He bolted for Canada.

In Toronto, he adopted the false name Allen Harvie Richardson, using papers
supplied by the anti-Vietnam War underground. Eventually he made his way to
Vancouver, where he found work at one of Canada's leading physics research
labs. He married, became a leader of the West Vancouver Society for
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and organized free community bluegrass and
banjo concerts.

But the past is a relentless pursuer.

Authorities were told last year of Richardson's true identity by an
anonymous tipster. After the Royal Canadian Mounted Police collared him at
work, Richardson won release from Canadian jail and appealed for leniency
from US authorities. But New York District Attorney Howard J. Relin opposed
setting aside the original sentence.

In court yesterday, Judge Connell said Richardson must take responsibility
for his actions and should not be rewarded for escaping just because he
followed a law-abiding adult life.

The case has become a cause celebre in Canada, where editorials strongly
condemned Ottawa's attempts to deport Richardson - on grounds that he gave a
false name upon entering the country in 1971 - before US authorities
formally requested his extradition.

''He has become an asset to both his community and his adopted country,''
noted the Toronto-based Globe and Mail. ''What is prison going to teach him
about reforming his life [that] the past years have not already affirmed?''
Richardson could have waged a legal battle that would have prolonged his
stay in Canada for years. But he made a decision to return, saying he wants
to end the ordeal, resume working at the university's Triumf physics lab
and, above all, care for his wife.

''I've led a decent life. It's hard to accept that I'm a criminal and should
be treated like one,'' Richardson said. ''I have resolved to go back to
prison so that I can return as soon as possible to be with Amalia.''