RI mother stunned at sex offender’s release

October 13, 2016 9:20 pm

By: News Staff

news@abc6.com

Richard Gardner only served 30 years of a 200 year sentence for vicious crimes against children, including kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old boy from Rhode Island.

That boy’s mother is speaking out; saying as long as Gardner is on the street nobody’s child is safe

“I was absolutely shocked, I literally thought the guy was going to die in prison,” said Cheryl Ellsworth.

When Richard Gardner of Weymouth, Massachusetts, was sentenced back in the 90’s to centuries in prison, Cheryl Ellsworth never thought she’d have to hear his name again.

It was Gardner who kidnapped her 11-year-old son Michael from their Warwick home in 1988 and sexually assaulted him.

“I put him to bed one night and Richard Gardner climbed through his bedroom window and took him with the intentions of killing him but instead molested him but said he was a good kid and decided to let him go,” said Cheryl Ellsworth.

Gardner was later arrested after kidnapping another Rhode Island boy and sentenced to 190 years in prison.

He only served 30 years before he was released last week.

Then recently he was summoned back to court for going into a library in Quincy, failing to tell a librarian he was a registered sex offender.

We’re now learning human error is to blame for his early release from prison.

The Plymouth District Attorney’s office now saying Gardner should have entered a mental institution, instead of being released back onto the streets, and that a clerical error is to blame.

Ellsworth is outraged and has some advice for parents in the area.

“Do what you can to protect your children, because this man is not going to stop […] he will eventually get his just due the day he dies and has to meet his maker, because he is not going upstairs,” said Cheryl Ellsworth.

Cheryl’s son Michael passed away at the age of 13 from medical issues he battled his entire life.

As for Gardner he’s on probation in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.