BostonGlobe.com32%
RI fugitive who fled during 2005 sexual assault trial arrested 24%
By Christopher Gavin6%
7/17/2026, 4:56:38 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Availability Heuristic, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 21.5% saturation with 213 hits. Analysis detected 1,074 faulty-reasoning hits from 993 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 37.2% and a BS Rank of 24% (13,393 of 17,611 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 76.00% of the article peer group.
PROVIDENCE – When authorities found him, cruising in a sailboat named The Silver Lining off the coast of New Jersey this week, one of the most-wanted fugitives in Rhode Island had been on the run for more than 20 years.
Ronald L.
Fischer, now 70, a former anesthesiologist from East Greenwich, R.I., had gone on the lam during his 2005 trial for first-degree sexual assault in Portsmouth, R.I.
A team of federal and Rhode Island investigators assigned to track down violent fugitives, said it recently received new information about his whereabouts and located him about an hour offshore of New Jersey.
His 56-foot sailboat was registered to Richard Graydon, an alias, officials said.
“This arrest demonstrates that time does not erase accountability,” Wing Chau, US marshal for the District of Rhode Island, said in a statement.
Maybe so, but some who’ve been involved in Fischer’s case over the years had begun to believe he would never be found.
“I was surprised,” said Carl Ricci, a now-former prosecutor who tried the case against Fischer in Newport County Superior Court more than two decades ago.
“I just figured, you know, he made it this long, I just thought [he’s] probably going to make it for the rest of his life — if he’s alive."
It was not clear on Friday when Fischer may appear again in a Rhode Island courtroom.
Fischer spent years on Rhode Island’s “Most Wanted” list after he disappeared while on trial in April 2005 for sexually assaulting a woman aboard his boat at a Portsmouth marina.
His whereabouts were unknown.
Authorities have described him as “a master yachtsman, a world traveler, and internationally connected.”
Fischer had once boasted an impressive resume.
A graduate of Cornell University, he served as chairman of the anesthesiologist department at the now-shuttered Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, and as an assistant professor at Brown University’s medical school, The Providence Journal reported in 2005.
But his criminal record, in time, came to show a different side.
In August 1994, Fischer was arrested and charged with rape after he assaulted a nursing student, who had responded to his personal ad in which Fischer described himself as “Handsome physician.
SWM.
Kind, sensitive, sincere, and compassionate,” the Globe reported in 1996.
The incident happened aboard Fischer’s yacht, The Dreammaker, at Marina Bay in Quincy.
The rape charge was eventually dropped when Fischer pleaded guilty to assault and battery.
He received a two-year prison sentence that was suspended.
Fischer’s medical licenses in Massachusetts and Rhode Island were later revoked.
In April 2003, Fischer brought Cheryl Gingerich, a woman he met online, to his boat — this one named The Lion King — docked at a marina in Portsmouth.
Gingerich, a mother of four, testified in court that she helped him clean the boat before the two had planned to go get lunch, the Journal reported at the time.
But, at one point, Fischer pushed her onto a bed, forcing himself upon her, she said.
Fischer was out on bail as the trial proceeded, Ricci said.
Days before closing arguments, he emailed his attorney.
The subject line: “Goodbye.”
“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, according to the Providence Journal.
“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.”
A check for $5,000 to cover his legal fees would clear within a few days, Fischer wrote.
In a P.S. note, he advised his attorney, “Please eat less chocolate and watch your diet.”
Fischer was ultimately convicted in absentia after failing to appear for trial, officials said.
He remained wanted for failure to appear, first-degree sexual assault, and flight to avoid prosecution.
The Globe does not generally name victims of sexual assault.
Gingerich, who gave permission to be identified, declined an interview request on Friday.
She told station WJAR in Rhode Island that she was so traumatized by the attack that she was unable to work and gave up her career as an English professor.
“I was happy to think when I woke up . . .
I slept last night in my bed and Ronald Fisher slept last night in a jail,” she told the station.
“That made me — I’m sorry to say it but truthfully — it made me happy.”
Her son, Jan Hilfer, said his family is “elated” Fischer is in custody and hopes this time, he will not have another chance to run away.
“We look forward to welcoming him back to Rhode Island in the courtroom, and we hope that they view his 20 years of flight as enough time free,” Hilfer said.
“I think he should spend the rest of his life in prison — and that’s precisely where he belongs.”
Officials did not disclose what new information led them to Fischer, saying only it was “rapidly analyzed, corroborated, and determined to be credible and actionable.”
Authorities also did not release details on Fischer’s life on the run in the intervening 20 years.
Timothy Rondeau, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office, wrote in an email on Friday that when Fischer is returned to state custody, prosecutors “will be prepared to ask the Court to schedule a sentencing hearing for the sexual assault conviction and to be arraigned for the additional charge for bail jumping.”
Through the decades, Ricci never forgot Fischer.
The fugitive’s face followed him.
Sometimes, Ricci, now a criminal defense attorney, would see Fischer’s picture at local police departments, where it was displayed among the state’s most wanted in hopes that some day, at long last, he would be found.
“Oh, that picture,” Ricci said he would think to himself.
“I remember that guy.”
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