'Most Wanted' child molester from Colorado arrested | News

DENVER -- U.S. Marshals announced Tuesday the arrest of Richard Carl Heeringa, a convicted child molester who has been on the run from Douglas County since April 2010.

He has been on the U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted list.

A jury convicted Heeringa guilty of 17 counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and failure to register as a sex offender. He faces more than 500 years in prison.

Heeringa, 55, was arrested in Detroit Saturday, October 29. A news conference was scheduled about the arrest later Tuesday in Denver.

The suspect fled in the middle of the night on April 15, 2010, the same day the jury reached its guilty verdict. He had been on the run since then.

Heeringa has two other sex assault cases pending in Colorado and he has served 12 years in prison for a sex assault conviction in Michigan.

U.S. Marshals investigators say shortly after being released from prison in 2004, Heeringa met a single mother from Colorado.

He moved to Colorado and began living with the mother and her daughter. He soon began sexually abusing the 12 year old and continued the abuse until January 2008, when the child came forward with allegations of sexual abuse.

"Richard Heeringa is a predator, who has a track record of preying on young girls," said U.S. Marshals spokesman Geoff Shank when Heeringa was added to the 15 Most Wanted list.