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Editor’s Note: This story contains discussions of rape or sexual assault that may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can find help and discreet resources on the National Sexual Assault Hotline website or by calling 1-800-656-4673.
LOS ANGELES (KTLA/WPRI) – A former doctor convicted of sexual assault who spent more than 20 years on the run, and who appears to have been living in plain sight as a Los Angeles biotech executive, was captured aboard a yacht off the East Coast, federal investigators announced.
Ronald L. Fischer, 70, was arrested last week after federal authorities intercepted his 56-foot sailing vessel, The Silver Lining, off the coast of New Jersey, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
Fischer had been wanted since 2005, when he fled Rhode Island during his trial on allegations that he raped a woman aboard another yacht, the Lion King, two years earlier. He was subsequently convicted in absentia of first-degree sexual assault.
Authorities said Fischer spent years using more than a dozen aliases, including Richard Graydon, the name under which he allegedly built a career in biotechnology and worked for Immix Biopharma, a pharmaceutical company based in West Los Angeles.
Immix had identified Graydon as its chief medical officer.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company disclosed that Graydon was terminated July 17, around the time Fischer was captured. Immix said the termination was “for reasons unrelated to his activities at the company,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Fischer was described by authorities as a former anesthesiologist, master yachtsman and world traveler. The vessel on which he was captured was registered under the Graydon alias.
The break in the decades-old case came after the Rhode Island Violent Fugitive Task Force and the FBI developed new information about Fischer’s whereabouts. Investigators spent 48 hours analyzing and corroborating the leads before tracing him to New York, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
Members of the Rhode Island task force then traveled to the area and coordinated with other Marshals Service personnel and the Coast Guard. Fischer’s yacht was located about an hour offshore, and he was taken into custody without incident.
Fischer vanished back in 2005 while on trial for first-degree sexual assault.
He notified his attorney via email just days before closing arguments that he was leaving the country.
“Although I believe my trial has gone very well, and expect to be acquitted and dismissed, the small chance of losing could carry extremely and unacceptably harsh penalties,” Fischer wrote in the email. “I have therefore decided not to take the risk and to leave the U.S. and enjoy life in another country where I have long been carefully planning a good, safe, secure and comfortable life.”
He was convicted despite his absence after prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he sexually assaulted a Rhode Island woman on his yacht in 2003.
Fischer was considered one of Rhode Island’s most wanted fugitives prior to his capture and was also featured several times on “America’s Most Wanted.”
“You can run, but you cannot hide from justice,” First Assistant United States Attorney Charles Calenda said. “Ronald Fischer will now return to Rhode Island to face the consequences he sought to evade for more than 20 years.”
Fischer will now be charged with failing to appear for trial and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
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