Photos of Richard Steve Goldberg, now 78, provided by the FBI after he was added to the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list in 2002. (Courtesy of FBI)
A former Boeing engineer who at one point landed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list for five years after fleeing to Canada was arrested by Long Beach police on child molestation charges shortly after he was released from federal prison, where he served a 20-year sentence for a child pornography conviction, authorities said Friday, May 31.
Richard Steve Goldberg, now, 78, was originally wanted by Long Beach police in 2001 after an investigation into allegations that he inappropriately touched girls ages 5- to 9-years old led to the discovery of graphic nude photos of underage girls on his computer, according to police and court documents.
Long Beach police at the time said Goldberg would allow girls to come to his home to play with his pets, watch television and play games on his computer after he had gained the trust of their parents. Some of them had even taken short trips with him, police said.
They launched an investigation after a girl returned home from a visit to his house and told her sister that Goldberg inappropriately touched her and other children, police said. The sister told their mother, who called police.
Goldberg was arrested, but released because police didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. In June 2001, they seized his computer while serving a search warrant, where they found the explicit photos, according to federal court documents. Police said they found evidence showing Goldberg had molested six girls.
But by the time the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had filed charges against him, allowing police to obtain an arrest warrant, Goldberg fled the state and was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list in June 2002.
Goldberg fled to Canada, where he remained for five years until a woman identified him from the FBI’s website, leading Canadian authorities to arrest him at his home in Montreal, Canada in 2007. At the time of his arrest, Goldberg was using a fake name, Terry Wayne Kearns.
He was extradited to the United States to face federal charges of production of child pornography.
In federal court documents, authorities said Long Beach detectives had interviewed four girls, ages 5- to 9-years old, who had visited his house on the date of the original call to police. The girls told detectives they watched “The Shining” and that Goldberg allowed some of the girls to play a game on his computer, at one point sitting on his lap.
Two of the girls said they later saw Goldberg engaging in inappropriate sexual conduct with a third girl in his bedroom, court documents show. The two other girls, including the one Goldberg was accused of touching, denied anything bad happened during the visit, court documents show.
Goldberg pleaded guilty in federal court to one charge of producing child pornography and was sentenced in December 2007 to 20 years in federal prison.
He was released on May 24, but Long Beach police worked with the DA’s office to reopen the 2001 case and coordinate for his arrest following his release from federal custody, and arranged for him to be extradited back to L.A. County, Long Beach police spokesman Richard Mejia said.
He faces nine counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and two counts of possession of obscene matter of a child in a sexual act, according to L.A. County Superior Court records. He is scheduled to enter a plea to the charges on June 11.
Inmate records show Goldberg is being held in jail on no bail.
Originally published at Nathaniel Percy