For two decades, one of Rhode Island's most-wanted men built an entire second life as a cancer specialist. It fell apart aboard a sailboat on the East River.
US Marshals and the Coast Guard arrested Ronald Fischer, 70, on July 16 aboard a 56-foot sailing vessel in New York. Fischer, a former anesthesiologist licensed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, had been a fugitive since 2005, when he fled the country days before closing arguments in his trial for first-degree sexual assault. He was accused of raping a woman on his yacht during a date, a case that followed an earlier 1994 incident in which he pleaded guilty to assault and battery and lost his medical licenses. He was convicted in absentia in 2005 and has been wanted ever since for flight to avoid prosecution.
Under the alias Richard Graydon, Fischer reinvented himself as a hematologist-oncologist with a fabricated resume claiming a Stanford medical degree, Harvard training, and stints at Merck and Johnson & Johnson working on blockbuster cancer drugs. He even self-published a memoir in 2017 describing his supposed career.
The fabrication worked for years. Atossa Therapeutics named him interim chief medical officer in 2022, and Immix Biopharma hired him earlier this year, praising his experience in cell therapy in a public announcement. Neither company appears to have verified his claimed credentials, and Stat News reported it could not confirm any of them either.
Immix disclosed Fischer's termination in a Monday SEC filing, saying his short tenure meant no material impact on the business. Police had tracked more than a dozen aliases used during his years on the run, describing him in profiles as a self-styled master yachtsman and world traveler.
The case is a reminder of how easily unverified résumés can slip past corporate hiring processes, particularly in fast-moving industries eager to fill specialized executive roles.