U.S. FUGITIVE TO SURRENDER ON 1971 DRUG CONVICTION

The West Vancouver man who escaped from U.S. prison will end his bid
for refugee status.

A West 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, his lawyer said
Sunday.

Allen Richardson, a lab technician at UBC's Triumf research facility,
was ordered out of Canada last year, but until now, 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, his
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.''

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

Richardson will cross the border and return to Rochester on June 28,
Bolton said.

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

Officials with the citizenship and immigration department and with
Minister Elinor Caplan's office could not be reached Sunday.

Richardson and his wife Amalia were vacationing and did not return The
Sun's calls.

Amalia will stay in Vancouver close to treatment for her cancer,
Bolton said. Richardson could be locked up as long as two years and
four months, he added.

Howard Relin, district attorney in Monroe County, New York, said in an
interview Sunday that Richardson will most likely serve his time in a
medium-security institution.

He added that he will likely be eligible for parole after six or seven
months.

``Given his situation about his wife I suspect that the parole board
would be sympathetic,'' he said.

Richardson didn't have a criminal background when he was arrested on
the drug charge in 1971, but he was sent to Attica Correctional
Facility, a brutal, maximum-security institution near Buffalo, N.Y.,
and was transferred after a few months to a work camp near the
Canadian border.

Shortly after he was transferred from Attica, the prison was the scene
of the United State's most deadly prison riot, where 32 prisoners and
11 corrections officers were killed.

Richardson has said he was terrified because the guards at the camp
threatened to send him back.

He walked away from the camp, and set up his new identity in Canada,
eventually landing the Triumf job in 1983, where he has worked since.

Richardson and Amalia have been married for more than six
years.

The soft-spoken man with greying hair became a director of the SPCA,
joined a bluegrass music group and a vintage car club.

But in 1998 someone tipped off U.S. authorities about Richarson's past
and his true identity. The information was passed on to the RCMP.

Richardson was arrested at his work, and in January, 1999, citizenship
and immigration ordered him out of Canada for entering with a criminal
record and lying about his identity.

Then, last November a New York judge refused to reduce or vacate
Richardson's prison sentence and urged him to ``take personal
responsibility'' for his crime and return to the U.S.

Richardson's Canadian lawyers have sought to persuade U.S. authorities
to allow Richardson to serve out his sentence in Canada, where he can
be near his ailing wife.

But Richardson is not a Canadian citizen, so he could not serve his
time in a Canadian institution, Bolton said.

One of the last options was a refugee board hearing, scheduled for
this Tuesday.

However, the Immigration and Refugee Board rarely grants refugee
status to people fleeing the U.S.

Bolton said all the uncertainty and the legal wrangling has worn
Richardson and Amalia down.

``We were sort of sitting in limbo,'' he said. ``The Richardsons have
arrived at an assessment that it's not helping her health at all for
this to be prolonged. They're praying for some compassion from the
authorities in New York.''

Bolton added that Richardson's sentence could still be reduced.