[BrianWall-ChessList] Robert Snyder Captured in Belize

[Brian Wall]

http://main.uschess.org/content/view/9922/565


http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=15681
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American Fugitive Sex Offender Captured in Belize
posted (December 4, 2009)
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One of America’s most wanted has been caught in Belize. His name is Robert
Snyder and he is a convicted child molester who draws in children by acting as
a Chess Instructor and that’s just what he was doing in Belize – teaching chess
under the name Augustin Rios. Details are scarce but we have learned that he was
apprehended by Belizean authorities today after he was featured on the Saturday
November 28th edition of America’s Most Wanted.

We have learned also that acting under his new name Snyder had re-married in
Belize, reportedly to a police-woman. Snyder who is a chess master, instructor
and an author of books about chess was also teaching chess at a number of
primary schools in Belize. We don’t know how many schools he taught at as the
information is late-breaking.
According to the America’s Most Wanted website – Snyder was a well-known chess
instructor in the United States, mainly teaching children, but police say he
also worked for actors like Will Smith and Nicholas Cage. And while he was a
highly regarded instructor, especially to children, America’s Most Wanted
quoted police as saying that Snyder was, in reality, a child molester, drawn to
assaulting his students.

He was arrested in Colorado in 2005, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors
and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of Unlawful Sexual Conduct, and
agreed to a two-year term. He began serving his sentence in January of 2007. In
August of 2008, Snyder was released from jail, and was supposed to register as a
sex offender and meet with his probation officer. He did neither, and has been
on the run ever since.

According to our information, he appeared in Belize one month later in September
of 2008 where he immediately started working as a chess instructor. It’s a very
worrying situation because as we said, we don’t know the extent of his
activities in Belize, but according to parents of children who he abused,
Snyder was slick.

“He was very good at building confidence, he was very good at building trust,
was always very professional. With us he was very engaging, very personable as
far as that goes. With the other kids, the other kids seemed to like him and
respond to him in a very positive way as far as that goes and so did the
parents. It was a month or two before he molested our son because that is when
little things started coming out about he looked like he pulled out a picture
and said he looks like my son. When he was married, his stepson and they looked
almost identical at that time and just little things. There were little remarks
in hindsight that you look back on now. How did we miss that. At that point we
thought it was just confidence building and he was being very complimentary,
those types of things.”

Again, Snyder was in Belize for at least 14 or 15 months working as a chess
instructor under the assumed name Augustin Rios. He was just apprehended by
Belize police today and we’ll have more about this disturbing case on Monday’s
newscast.