FORT COLLINS — A chess teacher facing a possible life sentence for molesting his students declared his innocence Tuesday and boasted about his prowess on the chess board before he was handcuffed and taken to prison.
Robert Michael Snyder — the author of the “Chess for Juniors” book series — issued a statement to the media through his attorney, saying he was not guilty of sexually abusing two boys who came to him wishing to know more about chess.
Snyder, 55, refused to speak for himself at his sentencing hearing, during which he was described as a narcissistic pedophile, who used chess to manipulate and destroy his young charges. He pleaded guilty Jan. 29 to a probation violation.
“There has been no willingness on his part to seek rehabilitation,” said Larimer County District Judge Dave Williams. “He has no empathy at all for his victims.”
Williams then imposed an open sentence on Snyder, meaning he will spend at least 12 years — and potentially much longer — in prison for sexual assault on a child.
Under the sentence, Snyder may apply for parole, but the Department of Corrections has the latitude to decide when — or if — he can be released, prosecutor Cliff Riedel said.
Riedel told the court that a psycho- sexual evaluation of Snyder revealed a man who cared only for his own sexual needs and a man who used students — and sometimes their mothers — to get what he wanted.
“This is a highly intelligent man, a very manipulative defendant who is a predatory pedophile with delusions of his own grandeur,” Riedel said.
Police said Snyder molested two male students — 10 and 11 — at his Fort Collins home, which had a backyard playground called “Fort Chess.”
In 2005, he pleaded guilty to sexual assault on a child as well as a misdemeanor count of unlawful sexual contact with a child, involving another student.
After serving a two-year sentence in the Larimer County Jail for the misdemeanor, he fled the country in 2008 for Belize instead of serving 10 years of intensive supervision for sex offenders.
Snyder was arrested last year when the television show “America’s Most Wanted” featured him in an episode. A parent at an elementary school in Belize saw the show and tipped off law enforcement that a man known as Augustin Rios matching Snyder’s description was teaching chess to children through the school.
Riedel said Snyder got a Mexican birth certificate, a driver’s license and a passport while he was serving his two-year sentence. In Belize, he married a police officer who had two young children and resumed teaching chess, Riedel said.
Snyder has shown no remorse for what he did to his young students, said the mother of one of his victims.
“He is a lifelong pedophile who won’t stop,” the woman told Williams. “Clearly, he can’t be trusted.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
