Richard Goldberg

Richard Steve Goldberg (born November 9, 1945) is a convicted sex offender and a former fugitive who was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on June 14, 2002. Goldberg is the 474th fugitive to be placed on the list. He was captured in Montreal, Canada on May 12, 2007, and subsequently convicted and sentenced to imprisonment of 20 years.

Child molestation accusations

In 2001, Goldberg, a former Boeing aerospace engineer originally from Brooklyn, New York, became a babysitter in the Long Beach, California area by gaining the trust of neighborhood parents and making his home attractive to children. Goldberg had several children's items such as computer games, children's music, art supplies, swings, children's soap, and cages with rabbits and ducks.^[1]

On May 11, 2001, two young girls playing on Goldberg's computer saw an image of two of their young friends naked with their neighbor. Authorities were alerted and an investigation was launched when six neighborhood children reported being sexually assaulted by Goldberg. Police searched his home in June 2001 and seized his computer. Investigators discovered images of child pornography on his computer, including photos of Goldberg himself, engaged in sex acts with children.^[1] Goldberg was arrested and he fled after $50,000 had been posted for his bail.^[2]

In July 2001, a state arrest warrant was issued in California charging Goldberg with six counts of lewd acts upon a child and two counts of possession of child pornography. Goldberg was subsequently charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in a federal arrest warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Central District of California.^[3]

Fugitive

Goldberg visited his parents briefly in Rumson, New Jersey after leaving Long Beach.^[1] On July 26, 2001, he crossed the Canada–United States border, claiming to be on a business trip and using his U.S. passport. Despite his status on the FBI's list, he was able to withdraw nearly $50,000 from his U.S. bank account to finance the six years he spent in hiding in Montreal.^[4] Goldberg lived under the fictitious name Terry Wayne Kearns, backed by a Saskatchewan birth certificate,^[2] and was living off his savings and keeping a low profile.^[5] He was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on June 14, 2002. He was considered armed and extremely dangerous. The FBI offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to Goldberg's capture.

Capture

Wikinews has related news: FBI 'Ten Most Wanted' fugitive arrested in Montreal, Canada

In May 2007, Goldberg had been seeing a nonprofit counselor. He allegedly told the counselor he was an American fugitive, but the charges against him were "trumped up".^[6] The counselor had identified Goldberg as one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and verified the outstanding arrest warrant for Goldberg by visiting the FBI's website, where Goldberg's photo and a description of his crimes were posted.^[7] He then contacted the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office and provided the information as to where Goldberg could be located. Agents with the FBI's Los Angeles Office then contacted the FBI's Legal Attaché stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, with details as to Goldberg's whereabouts. The FBI's Legal Attaché in Ottawa requested assistance from Canadian law enforcement authorities in Montreal. Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Montreal Police Service (MPS) responded immediately and arrested Goldberg without incident at the address provided by the tipster.^[8]

After being a fugitive for six years, Goldberg was arrested by the RCMP and MPS for violating Canadian immigration laws on May 12, 2007. On May 24, he was deported from Canada back to the United States, where he was tried on both state and federal charges of child sexual abuse and distribution of obscene material involving children.^[9]

Goldberg's lawyer, Jeffrey Boro, said his client was preparing to surrender himself days before his arrest. The lawyer suggested Goldberg's inquiries and requests for help made him easy to track down.^[5]

Trial and conviction

On December 10, 2007, Goldberg pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of producing child pornography, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.^[7][10] At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge John Walter said: "Goldberg is a deeply disturbed individual with a lack of remorse beyond belief."^[7]

Goldberg (Federal Bureau of Prisons ID # 14321-052) is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Petersburg, a medium-security federal prison in Petersburg, Virginia. His projected release date is October 11, 2024.^[11]

R@ygold

"R@ygold" was potentially a nickname of Richard Goldberg, which become a keyword. In the open "R@ygold" was first the name for a specific set of childporn-films of the 1970s with little girls from Color Climax with a new title screen. There is no evidence for a direct connection to Raymond Goldman and they seems only named after him. In the stories about him above only pictures are mentioned. In the Usenet it is first archived in February 2002, mention spam in some newsgroups.^[12] It becomes fast a keyword for similar pictures and films in the beginning of filesharing-software like LimeWire^[13] (Initial release May 2000) Kazaa^[14] (Initial release March 2001) and WinMX (initial release May 2001). The file extension of pictures and films was there changed to ".mp3" (probably because initial software indexed only "*.mp3" and later "*.zip", no pictures or videos.). In March 2003 was the end of a nearly one year long police investigation in Italy, which was named after the keyword and lead to 102 offenders.^[15] Because of the special character in the word, it is also written as "raygold", "r(at)ygold", "@ygold" or "ygold".

Raygold is also the name of a dam on the Rogue River in Oregon.^[16][17] RAYGOLD.ZIP or RAYGOLD.EXE was the name of a demo for the game "Rayman Gold" from Ubi Soft, which was distributed from November 1997 over FidoNet.^[18]

See also

• National Cyber Security Awareness Month

References

External links

• The Internet Wayback Machine's archive of Goldberg's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
• Goldberg's profile on America's Most Wanted