A Rhode Island adult male who served 30 years in prison for kidnapping and raping children is head back to the slammer, this time for stealing a gambling casino rewards card.

Notorious paedophile Richard Gardner, 56, was sentenced to eight years by a jurist in Rockwell Kent County, RI after pleading nolo contendere Thursday to multiple counts of accessing a electronic computer for fraudulent purpose, and obtaining money under sour repentance.

Gardner, who terrorized children in New England inwards the 1980s, used upwardly to $2K-worth of “free play” credits on the stolen scorecard at Bally’s Twin Falls River in Tiverton. He also claimed promotional gifts that were non his to claim.

Caught on Tape

The offence was uncovered when the existent possessor of the scorecard attempted to exact a gift she had earned at the casino, only when to live told it had already been taken.

Gardner was spotted on surety video inward the cognitive operation of committing the crime, according to prosecutors. When state law arrested Gardner at his home, they found 12 additional loyalty cards belonging to other people.

“Through an in-depth reexamine of surveillance, that manful was later identified to be this defendant,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Batista said. “An investigating farther revealed that this suspect utilised the stolen rewards card end-to-end December, January, and too soon February.”

1980s Kidnap Spree

In November 1987, Gardner, then 21, blindfolded and raped a 12-year-old boy who had become spaced from his fuss at a common inward Hingham, Mass., according to newsprint reports at the time.

In June 1988, spell come out on bail for that assault, he abducted a 10-year-old boy inwards Providence, RI past bundling him into a stolen car. He took him to a secluded shoes and raped him.

A month later, he bust into a rest home in Warwick, RI by climbing through and through a window and kidnapped a 10-year-old boy at knifepoint. He horde the boy to a wooded surface area and sexually assaulted him before letting him go.

On the same day, he abducted a six-year-old boy who he tied to a tree diagram and assaulted before setting him discharge 24 hours later.

Gardner was captured after a high-speed motorcar dog through the streets of Richard Neville that ended when a police cruiser rammed his stolen Camaro, according to reports at the time.

In 2018, when residents of Providence’s American capital Mungo Park neighborhood discovered that a lately released Gardner was living in their midst, crowds began picketing his home, demanding he leave alone town. capital of Rhode Island police spent to a greater extent than $100K guarding his nursing home from tardily 2018 to February 2019, according to WJAR.