A Utah County father has been indicted on a federal international parental kidnapping charge after investigators said he took his two young sons to Mexico without permission and triggered an Amber Alert across Utah. Dane Stephen Richman, 46, of Saratoga Springs, is now in federal custody in San Diego, and prosecutors have asked that he be extradited to Utah for his first court appearance.
The indictment comes days after the children were found safe in San Felipe, Mexico and reunited with their mother, ending a frantic search that began when Richman failed to return them at the end of a court-ordered visit on May 23. U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak said the outcome was the result of swift coordination between local and federal law enforcement partners and Mexican authorities, and that the boys were safely back home.
Richman was supposed to meet the mother at a local gas station that day to hand the children back under a temporary joint custody order from Utah's 4th District Court, which set exchange dates every other weekend. Instead, police said a wellness check at his Saratoga Springs home found the house empty and all property missing. Prosecutors said he had quit his job, abandoned the home and cleaned out his bank accounts.
Investigators later determined that Richman told the children's mother he had taken the boys camping in California. Prosecutors said he crossed the border in southern California with them. An Amber Alert went out on digital signs along Utah highways on May 23, then to cellphones statewide at about 7:30 a.m. the next day. A warrant for his arrest followed a few hours later, and FBI detectives eventually located him and the children in San Felipe.
The case also exposed a history that prosecutors say stretches back years. Court documents say Richman has three felony convictions and seven misdemeanor convictions for theft, money laundering and fraud dating to 2001, and federal prosecutors said he was listed as a fugitive out of Florida in 2011. He was charged in 4th District Court on May 24 with two counts of custodial interference, a third-degree felony, before the federal case overtook the state one.
The unanswered question now is how Richman managed to leave the country with the children before authorities could stop him. What prosecutors have made clear is that the mother had moved to Washington, the boys were supposed to be returned under court order, and the search ended only when law enforcement on both sides of the border found them and brought them home.
