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Richard Graydon spent years cultivating an enviable life.
He worked for a biotech pharma company in Los Angeles. He owned a 56-foot yacht he named Silver Lining, and authorities said he was known as a master yachtsman and a world traveler.
But the U.S. Marshals Service and federal prosecutors say it was all built on a false identity.
Graydon’s real name, federal authorities said, was Ronald L. Fischer, a Rhode Island fugitive who used more than a dozen aliases to avoid capture for more than 20 years.
Last week, a federal task force along with the U.S. Coast Guard tracked Fischer to his yacht and took him into custody off the coast of New Jersey.
“You can run, but you cannot hide from justice,” First Asst. U.S. Atty. Charles C. Calenda for the District of Rhode Island said in a statement. “Ronald Fischer will now return to Rhode Island to face the consequences he sought to evade for more than 20 years.”
“This arrest demonstrates that time does not erase accountability,” Wing Chau, U.S. marshal for the District of Rhode Island, said in a statement. “For more than twenty years, Ronald Fischer believed he had successfully escaped justice. The men and women of the Rhode Island Violent Fugitive Task Force, together with our partners, remained committed to ensuring that day would eventually come.”
Fischer, who had been accused of raping a woman on a yacht called Lion King in 2003, fled during his May 2005 rape trial. He was convicted of first-degree sexual assault in his absence.
An arrest warrant was issued for him that same month for failure to appear, first degree sexual assault and flight to avoid prosecution, according to federal authorities.
Cheryl Gingrich told WRAL News she focused on healing from the trauma she experience while authorities searched for Fischer.
“I started to come to terms with it thanks to a very good doctor and a good therapist,” she told the North Carolina news station. “But it never left the back of my mind.”
Gingrich said the last time she saw Fischer was in court.
“He sat very casually at the desk with his attorney in a very casual position, just staring at me and with a kind of smug look on his face,” she told WRAL News. “And now I’ll be able to do the same to him.”
Fischer had long been listed among Rhode Island’s Most Wanted fugitives, including his photo and the various aliases he was known to use. He was described as a former anesthesiologist, a “master yachtsman” and “world traveler.”
Citing law enforcement sources, NBC4 reported that Fisher, under the alias Richard Graydon, worked as an executive at Immix Biopharma, a biotech pharmaceutical company in West Los Angeles.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, just four days after Fischer’s capture, Immix Biopharma disclosed it had terminated Richard Graydon’s employment on July 17 “for reasons unrelated to his activities at the company.”
A spokesperson for the company did not respond to a request for comment. But news of his capture raised questions about the company’s hiring practices.
A law firm representing the company’s investors announced Tuesday that it had launched an inquiry into whether Immix Biopharma or members of its leadership team breached federal securities laws.
“Media coverage revealed that an executive serving at Immix under the alias ‘Richard Graydon’ was allegedly Ronald Fischer, a top fugitive wanted in Rhode Island who was operating under an assumed identity,” the Portnoy Law Firm wrote in a news release.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
