LAS VEGAS —  Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced today that Richard S. Haddad was sentenced to a maximum sentence of 48 months imprisonment with minimum parole eligibility of 18 months for his felony convictions resulting from the international parental abduction of a two year old child from Las Vegas to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 

“Abductions of children pose innumerable dangers to those taken from their homes, as they are isolated from their families and familiar surroundings at a time when stability is so important to their development”, said Attorney General Cortez Masto.  “Missing children’s investigations always take immediate priority in police departments and law enforcement agencies actively work to locate missing children and reunite them with their left-behind parents.”  

Haddad and the mother of the child had separated when the child was two months old in 2006, and it was alleged in the Criminal Information that the Family Court had ordered the parents to exercise joint physical and legal custody.   The relationship between the parents was tense, and a witness in the trial described the custody dispute as a high-conflict custody case.  Evidence in the trial included testimony that Haddad had engaged in multiple incidents of domestic violence against the child’s mother and had taken the child from her for a week in 2006 when she was eight weeks old. 

The defendant testified at trial and admitted that he took the child to Canada in violation of the terms of the custody order.  He claimed the child’s mother neglected her medical care and that the abduction was necessary to protect the child.  However, two pediatricians testified they had treated the child regularly during her first two years and there was no evidence the child had ever been neglected.  One of the child’s pediatricians testified the mother of the child was an excellent care-giver who saw that the child received regular medical care in his office.  Other witnesses testified the child was healthy and happy and exhibited no signs of neglect.

The child was missing from her home in Las Vegas for six weeks after the abduction and multiple agencies were involved in the investigation to find her, including the Henderson Police Department, the F.B.I., the State Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Canada Border Services, the Calgary, Alberta police, Child Find Canada, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Nevada Child Seekers.   The abducting parent was located and arrested in a casino in Calgary, Alberta, after he had placed the child in a day care center and left to gamble. 

 In his testimony, the defendant admitted that, in order to take the child across the border into Canada, he had forged the mother’s signature on a passport application for the child and had submitted the fraudulent application to the State Department for the issuance of the passport.