Utah father indicted after allegedly fleeing to Mexico with children

Dane Stephen Richman turned a missed custody exchange into an international case when he allegedly drove his two young sons out of Utah and into Mexico, leaving their mother waiting under a court order that was supposed to govern every other weekend. A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City indicted the 46-year-old Saratoga Springs man on June 9, 2026, for international parental kidnapping after prosecutors said he disappeared with the children and cut off contact.

Utah court records showed the family was operating under a temporary joint-custody arrangement in the Utah 4th District Court, with specific exchange dates set for every other weekend. The handoff that never happened was scheduled for May 23, 2026, at an agreed location, where Richman was supposed to return the children to their mother, who now lives in Washington. Instead, prosecutors said, he failed to show up and later told her he and the children had gone camping in California.

According to the indictment, that story was false. Investigators said Richman had driven through Southern California and crossed into Mexico with the children, all while their mother was still expecting the court-ordered exchange to be completed. When the pickup time passed, state authorities issued a warrant for his arrest, and the FBI joined the search. Officers also went to Richman’s home for a welfare check and found it empty, with his belongings gone. Prosecutors said he had quit his job and drained his bank accounts before disappearing.

The case moved fast once the children were reported missing. Utah police issued an Amber Alert that identified the boys as 22-month-old Will Richman and 10-month-old Wesley Richman, and the alert was later canceled after Mexican authorities located Richman and the children in San Felipe, Mexico. Officials there took them into custody and transferred everyone back to U.S. authorities. The children were reunited with their mother, and the Utah state court granted her temporary sole custody.

Richman was separately charged in Utah’s 4th District Court with two counts of custodial interference, a third-degree felony. He remains in federal custody in San Diego, California, pending extradition to Utah, where the international parental kidnapping case will move forward under 18 U.S.C. § 1204. For prosecutors, the alleged conduct crossed the line the moment a custody dispute became a border crossing, with court orders ignored, phones and bank records scrutinized, and two missing children ending up at the center of a federal case.