Nationally ranked chess player Robert Michael Snyder is being sought by Larimer County authorities after he completed two years of jail time for unlawful sexual contact but failed to register as a sex offender and show up for probationary supervision.
An arrest warrant was issued by Larimer County for Snyder, 54, on Sept. 19, for failure to register as a sex offender. The probation department issued an arrest warrant for Snyder a week earlier for contempt of court.
He has been placed on both the Fort Collins police and Larimer County sheriff’s “most wanted” lists.
In February 2006, Snyder was arrested after he was accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy and two 13-year-old male chess students.
A prodigy who started learning chess when he was 12, Snyder started a school for young students in the early 1980s. A major component of Snyder’s chess school consisted of weekend tournaments, during which students slept over at Snyder’s Fort Collins house.
During one of those sleepovers in 2005, a Loveland boy said he was sexually assaulted on two consecutive nights by Snyder.
Snyder pleaded guilty in January 2007 to felony sexual assault on a child and unlawful sexual contact, a misdemeanor.
He was sentenced to serve two years in the Larimer County jail on the misdemeanor charge and then was ordered — following completion of that sentence — to begin his 10-years-to-life probation sentence.
He was supposed to register as a sex offender and for the probation sentence but failed to appear.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
