Ric Lansing was first seen in November 2002 in a Venezuelan prison cell next to Jason Morgan and Carly Corinthos. A few weeks later, he arrived in Port Charles, right around the time international arms dealer Luis Alcazar was murdered. Ric went to see Sonny Corinthos and offered his legal services, but the mob boss turned him down. Later, Sonny decided to use Ric for odd jobs having to do with Luis's murder trial. For most of these jobs, Ric received little gratitude. Ric also befriended Carly, and she hired him as her business manager for her new club, Speakeasy.

Luis Alcazar's ex-lover, and prime murder suspect, Brenda Barrett eventually remembered Ric from her days with Luis in South America, and she recalled that she had seen Ric in the hotel the night that Luis was killed. Ric admitted that he was there, but he only saw Luis's body, and then Ric went to Luis's suite to remove anything that might connect him to Luis. When Alexis abruptly left town for her daughter's surgery, Sonny had Ric take over Jason and Brenda's defense. Just as the trial was ending, the real killer contacted Ric with evidence that proved that Jason and Brenda didn't kill Luis. The killer was later revealed to be Alexis, who had killed Luis in self-defense.

Ric continued to help Carly with her new club, but he also continued to pester Sonny to hire him. Sonny always turned him down, with the exception of a few odd jobs. After Carly caught Brenda and Sonny kissing, Carly left her opening night party to drink away her pain at Jake's. Ric followed her, and he rescued her from Faith Rosco's goon, Fowler, who had drugged Carly's drink. Ric took Carly to a motel room, and Carly woke up naked next to Ric the following morning, horrified at the idea of having slept with him. She threatened to tell Sonny that Ric had raped her, but Ric insisted that it had been consensual. Ric used the night as blackmail to get Carly to talk him up to Sonny, so that Sonny would hire Ric. In truth, Ric had lied. Ric and Carly had never slept together.

A hit man shot up Carly's club, and Ric took a bullet while walking near Sonny and Carly. Sonny and Carly believed it had been an accident that Ric was shot, but Ric claimed that he'd taken the bullet to save Sonny. Despite Ric's selfless act, Sonny still refused to let Ric work for him. Angry, Ric formed a silent partnership with Faith Roscoe, the widow of a rival mobster killed at Sonny's order. Ric hoped to destroy Sonny from the inside out. Jason, who had never trusted Ric, suspected the illicit partnership, so Ric tried to throw Jason and Sonny off his track by fabricating evidence to make it look like Jasper "Jax" Jacks was Faith's partner. Jason didn't buy it, prompting Jason set up a trap for Faith. Before she could reveal the identity of her silent partner, Ric shot her and, when she didn't die, he threatened to finish his secret lover off if she gave him up.

Shortly afterwards, Carly had found out that she was pregnant. Fearing that the baby could be Ric's, she had a paternity test done and was relieved that the baby was Sonny's. She told Sonny about the night she spent with Ric, and that she had found out that she had been drugged. Sonny believed her, and he had Ric picked up. Ric managed to escape, but he abducted Sonny's sister then told Sonny to meet him at a vacation home in Martha's Vineyard. Sonny recognized the home from his childhood, and Ric explained that it was because Sonny and Ric's mother had once resided in the home. Ric was the love child of Sonny's mother and her boss, Trevor Lansing. Ric also stated that he never laid a hand on Carly. For their mother's sake, Sonny walked away without killing Ric.

Furious, Carly attempted to take matters into her own hands, but Sonny stopped her. Ric decided to use evidence that he had fabricated to incriminate Jason for Fowler's murder in an attempt to blackmail Sonny's sister, Courtney Matthews, into marrying Ric. However, Ric didn't love Courtney; he was in love with Elizabeth Webber. Liz had been nursing a broken heart when she had met Ric, and she was unaware of Ric's darker nature as she tried to move on from Jason. Liz had fallen for Ric, and she was crushed when she learned about his engagement to Courtney.

However, Ric's engagement to Courtney ended days later when Jason and Courtney managed to get rid of the fabricated evidence. Liz washed her hands of Ric when she learned that he had manipulated Carly, and he kidnapped Courtney to get to Sonny, but everything changed when Liz discovered that she was pregnant. Ric convinced her to give him a second change, and she agreed. Ric and Liz were married by a justice of the peace on May 22, 2003. Ric also called a truce with Sonny.

Unfortunately for Ric, Faith had become obsessed with him, and she didn't think that Liz deserved him. To stir up Ric's emotions about Sonny, Faith pushed Liz down a flight of stairs, while Liz had been waiting for Sonny. Liz miscarried and a distraught Ric blamed Sonny, believing Sonny had pushed Liz down the flight of stairs. Ric believed the worst about Sonny because Ric's father had told Ric that Sonny had once deliberately pushed Adela down a flight of stairs when she had been pregnant with Ric. Sonny had been a child, and the incident had been a horrible accident, but Trevor Lansing had filled Ric's head with lies about Sonny.

Ric snapped when he learned that Carly was pregnant, so he plotted to take Sonny's new baby to replace the one that Liz had lost. Ric bought a house with a secret panic room in it. He kidnapped Carly in front of her young son, Michael, and he kept her secured to the wall by a long chain. She tried to escape a few times, but Ric managed to thwart her attempts. Carly then resorted to mind games, taunting Ric that Sonny would kill him, or Liz would leave him when she found out. Sonny didn't believe that Ric had Carly, but Jason did, especially when Michael said that he saw Ric take Carly.

Lorenzo Alcazar, Luis's identical twin brother who had arrived in Port Charles to avenge his brother, figured out that Ric had taken Carly, and he became Ric's partner against Sonny. To take the heat off of Ric, Alcazar planted evidence to make it look like Carly had been taken to South America. Meanwhile, Liz wanted to try for a new baby right away, but Ric had become so obsessed with taking Carly's baby, so he paid off a doctor to tell Liz that she couldn't conceive. When Liz went for a second opinion, which confirmed that nothing was wrong with her, Ric resorted to crushing up birth control pills then putting them in Liz's food. One day, Liz discovered the button that opened the door to the panic room, and she was shocked when she saw Carly.

However, Liz collapsed before she could rescue Carly. Ric arrived home before Carly could escape, and he locked Carly back in the room then rushed Liz to the hospital. The pills that Ric had been giving his wife had caused an embolism that had nearly killed her. In a moment of desperation, Ric contemplated killing Liz, while she remained unconscious because he feared that she would wake up and go to the police, but he couldn't do it. Instead, Ric decided to let Carly go, but it was too late -- Lorenzo Alcazar had abducted Carly from Ric's panic room.

As Ric had feared, Liz woke up and remembered seeing Carly. After she turned Ric in to the police, she left him. Ric became determined to redeem himself in Liz's eyes by helping Sonny find Carly. Sonny wanted to kill his brother, but Ric revealed that he knew the layout of Alcazar's South American compound, and Ric could help Sonny get in past the security. When Sonny and Jason rescued Carly, Ric sacrificed himself to give the trio a chance to escape the hail of gunfire from Alcazar's men. Ric nearly died before Jason rescued him. Alcazar had abducted Courtney, so Jason needed Ric's help to get Courtney back.

Liz refused to believe that Ric was trying to turn his life around for her, prompting Ric to enlist the help of Dr. Cameron Lewis to set up an insanity defense to explain why Ric had abducted Carly, but the doctor refused. Later Scott offered to drop the charges against Ric if Ric agreed to be the bait to trick Sonny into an attempted murder charge. Left with no real choice, Ric agreed.

On August 27, Liz served Ric with divorce papers and declared that their relationship over. Ric still loved Liz, and he'd been given a new lease on life, so he set about trying to win her back. When she was run down in the street and left temporarily blind, Ric was initially the main suspect. After he was cleared, he was by her side during her recovery. Wanting to impress Liz, Ric persuaded Scott to make him the Assistant District Attorney. Slowly, Liz allowed Ric back into her life. However, after a fight with Ric, she slept with Zander Smith hoping that it would drive Ric away for good. Ric was hurt, but he still wanted to be with her, and they went on a romantic getaway to a cabin in the woods.

Liz's one-night stand with Zander resulted in a baby. When Liz told Ric, he acted as if he believed that the baby was his, but in reality, he suspected that it might be Zander's. Despite that, Ric asked Liz to marry him, and on December 19, Ric and Liz remarried in a private ceremony. However, Ric wanted Liz to be honest with him, so he manipulated the truth from her. They agreed that they would ask Zander to sign away his parental rights because Zander had gone to work for Faith.

Zander decided to use his position to blackmail Ric into framing Nikolas Cassadine for murder. Ric went along with the plan for a while, but Zander kept demanding more and more from Ric, so Ric turned the tables on him by having Zander arrested for assaulting Nikolas. A few weeks later, Zander was presumed killed in the hotel fire, and Liz and Ric felt somewhat relieved. However, their nightmare wasn't over.

After Zander's "death," Liz, Ric, Nikolas, and Emily Quartermaine each received a letter from Zander claiming that each person's significant other had killed him. The two couples spent weeks trying to figure out who had actually killed Zander until Liz confessed that she had confronted Zander in the basement, and she had knocked him out with a pipe during an argument right before the hotel fire. Ric refused to let his wife go to jail for murder, so Ric, Emily, and Nikolas turned to Jason for help. Jason claimed that bad cop Andy Capelli had confessed to killing Zander just before Jason had killed the detective in self-defense.

A few days later, the truth was revealed when Zander turned up alive, and Liz spotted him with Emily in their old cottage. She alerted Ric who arrived with the police and surrounded the place. The resulting standoff ended in Zander's death when Zander committed "suicide by cop."

On April 14, 2004, Ric and Liz's marriage fell apart when Liz realized that Ric would never give up his vendetta against Sonny. Ric recognized that she was right, so he let Liz go. It was an amicable split, and Ric would always have a soft spot in his heart for Liz. Ric pursued his vendetta against Sonny with full force, and while digging into Sonny's past, he discovered that Sonny was the biological father of Alexis Davis' daughter, Kristina. Ric made a point of being in Alexis' orbit to get closer to her.

Eventually, Ric persuaded Alexis to go out with him, and he managed to get her drunk and pump her for info about Sonny. Alexis woke up with a hangover, and she was almost late for court, but she recalled sharing a passionate kiss with Ric. They shared another steamy kiss after a fundraising party. Ric also tried to make Alexis jealous by pretending that he had slept with another woman. The ploy worked.

In June, Liz returned to Port Charles with her infant son, Cameron, who had been named after Zander's father, Dr. Cameron Lewis. Ric met her in the park, and he held her son, but Liz made it clear that she had no intention of rekindling things with him. Eventually, Ric found happiness with Alexis, but not without some bumps along the way. When Alexis' daughter Kristina was diagnosed with a life threatening illness, Alexis realized that she had to tell Sonny that he was Kristina's father. Fearing that Sonny would sue for custody of the child, Ric proposed a marriage of convenience to Alexis. Alexis readily agreed to Ric's proposal.

On November 3, 2004, Ric and Alexis were married. When the crisis with Kristina was over, Alexis discovered that she was pregnant. Ric and Alexis realized that they were in love with each other, so they decided to make their marriage work.

Ric's only child was born on November 10, 2005, following a horrific train wreck. While trapped in a tunnel with Sonny, Carly and other survivors, Alexis went into labor. After some harrowing moments, Alexis gave birth to a little girl. Alexis and Ric agreed to name her after the Unsinkable Molly Brown, a Titanic survivor. Molly's birth drew Ric and Alexis closer together, but the revelation that Sam McCall was Alexis' daughter would soon tear the couple apart.

After Jason broke things off with Sam, Sam moved in with Ric and Alexis. Sam secretly resented her mother because Alexis had been instrumental in Jason's decision to end things with Sam. Wanting her mother to hurt too, Sam decided to seduce Ric, even though Sam detested him. Ric, feeling neglected by Alexis' withdrawal from their marriage was more than eager to act on his attraction to Sam. What neither Sam nor Ric realized was that Alexis had distanced herself from her family because she had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.

Things reached a crisis point one hot and stormy August night when Ric and Sam found themselves alone in the house during a power outage. Each was in a bad place, so they began to drink. One thing led to another, and Ric and Sam had sex on the living room floor. Minutes later, Alexis arrived home, and she saw her husband and daughter through the front window. She turned away just as Jason arrived to talk to Sam. Alexis' coughing fit managed to distract Jason, so she asked him to take her to the hospital. Shortly afterwards, Jason returned to the house, and he saw Ric and Sam together.

Later that night, Sam woke up. She immediately regretted what had happened between her and Ric. She got dressed and left. Meanwhile, Ric seemed to accept that his marriage to Alexis was over. Both Ric and Sam were in for a shock when they learned that Alexis had lung cancer. Ric tried to make his marriage to Alexis work, and he remained unaware that Alexis knew of his one-night-stand with Sam. However, Alexis couldn't hide her resentment for long, and the marriage was over by the fall of 2006.

Ric decided to fight Alexis for custody of Molly; he cited her lung cancer, as the reason that Alexis was unable to care for their daughter. Ric was eventually awarded custody. Initially he made visitation between Alexis and Molly difficult, but in time he relented for his daughter's sake.

Ric decided to revisit his past by returning to the home that his father, Trevor, had shared with Ric's mother, Adela. While there, Ric met a kind woman by the name of Marianna Erosa. Ric was instantly smitten with Marianna, but she had a secret. Trevor Lansing had blackmailed her to become involved with Ric. Trevor's goal was to get ownership of Ric's valuable waterfront pier and warehouse. Marianna reluctantly did Trevor's bidding until she fell in love with Ric. Ric too fell in love with Marianna. Marianna was terrified that Ric would learn of her association with Trevor. She had good reason to fear Ric's reaction. When he finally learned of it, Ric washed his hands of Marianna.

The betrayal set Ric on a new course; he aligned himself with mobster Anthony Zacchara. Ric promised to get the homicidal mobster released from the insane asylum in exchange for Anthony's promise to help Ric bring down Trevor. Anthony was quick to agree since Trevor had been working with Anthony's family to make certain that Anthony never saw the light of day again.

Shortly after Ric went to work for Anthony, Ric discovered that Anthony had faked his paralysis. This was an important discovery because Anthony had been excluded as the prime suspect in the shooting of Sonny's fiancée, Kate Howard, on their wedding day because Anthony was paralyzed. However, Ric realized that Anthony had committed the nefarious deed. Anthony also revealed his master plan; Anthony intended the shooting to drive a wedge between Sonny and Jason because Jason had taken control of the Corinthos organization after Sonny's son Michael had been shot.

Anthony framed the Russian mob for the shooting because Anthony knew that Jason would hesitate to go after Andre Karpov, the head of the organization. Sonny, Anthony speculated, wouldn't have any such qualms. However, Sonny needed muscle in order to accomplish his goal, so Anthony intended to offer the Zacchara organization to Sonny. To ensure that Sonny didn't betray Anthony, Anthony planned to have Sonny marry Anthony's daughter, Claudia. Once Sonny killed Karpov, Anthony was confident that Jason would feel obligated to kill Sonny, and Anthony would kill whoever was left standing after the showdown. Anthony intended to rule over the Russian organization as well as the Morgan empire and Zacchara organization.

Ric was in a perfect position to finally be victorious over his brother. Unfortunately for Ric, he had foolishly trusted Claudia with his secrets, and she had fallen for her new husband. She told Sonny about Anthony's plans, and the truth that Anthony had shot Kate. Anthony was forced to go on the run. Eventually, Jason and Sonny teamed up to hand Anthony over to the FBI.

In March 2009, Ric cut a deal of his own with the FBI. He promised to hand them Jason and Sonny on a silver platter in exchange for their agreement to turn a blind eye when Ric took control of the organizations, which had merged under Sonny's control. To put his plan into motion, Ric blackmailed Claudia. Ric had discovered that, a year earlier, Claudia had hired Ian Devlin to kill Sonny. The hit had gone terribly wrong and young Michael Corinthos had been struck in the head by the sniper's bullet. Ric knew if Sonny learned that Claudia had masterminded the hit that had left Sonny's son in a coma that her life would be forfeit. Claudia agreed to find incriminating evidence that the FBI could use to prosecute Jason and Sonny for organized crime. What Ric didn't know was that Claudia had only agreed to help Ric in an effort to buy herself some time to neutralize Ric as a threat.

Although Claudia had developed feelings for Sonny, they were rarely intimate, and she continued to sleep with Ric to improve her chances of conceiving a child that she hoped to pass off as Sonny's. She was well aware that Sonny would never kill the mother of his child. Her plot was underway until Ric overheard the due date, and he realized that the child could be his. Ric obtained a court order for a paternity test later in the pregnancy, but he was done engaging in the constant quest for revenge against Sonny. Ric moved to Los Angeles, but he assured Claudia that he would return for the paternity test. However, Claudia suffered a miscarriage, and it was later revealed that Sonny had been the father.

In February 2014, Ric quietly returned to Port Charles. Sonny had a new threat: the Jerome crime family. Sonny believed that Ric had aligned himself with the rival family, but Ric insisted that he had returned to spend more time with Molly, and to rekindle his relationship with Liz. Molly immediately accepted her father's presence in her life, and Liz agreed to give Ric another chance, but things fell apart once again with Liz because of Ric's secrets. Ric's plans took a turn when he was accused of being the head of the Jerome organization, and the attempted murder of Lucas Jones. Ric was arrested, but he insisted that he had been framed despite the evidence against him.

While in police custody, Police Commissioner Anna Devane admitted that she believed Ric had been set up. In order to draw out the real criminal, and to safe-guard his loved ones, Ric reluctantly agreed to fake his death. He quietly disappeared as news spread that he had been shot by a police officer while reaching for the officer's gun.

Several months later, Ric was exonerated, but he was kidnapped under Johnny Zacchara's orders to be used as leverage against Sonny. Ric was relieved when Johnny's plan fell apart, and he was rescued by Sonny's enforcer. Ric went directly to Molly and shared a joyous reunion with his daughter. Ric and Molly enjoyed a close relationship, and Molly tried to spend time with her father often.

Ric's relationship with Liz turned rocky when she developed a close friendship with a patient named Jake Doe. Jake had suffered extensive memory loss following an accident that had required facial reconstruction surgery. Fearing that he might lose Liz, Ric hired a woman named Hayden Barnes to claim that Jake Doe was Jake Barnes -- Hayden's husband. Eventually, Ric and Hayden's lies were exposed, and Liz ended things with Ric for good.

In May 2015, Ric conspired with his lover Madeline Reeves to gain access to her daughter's fortune. Ric turned on the charm, and he persuaded Nina Reeves to marry him in a quick elopement on May 18. However, Nina was no more in love with her husband than he had been with her, and she soon realized that she had made a mistake. Desperate to salvage things, Ric cut a deal with the authorities to get a confession from Madeline Reeves about her role in Silas Clay's murder in exchange for immunity. Nina had the marriage annulled.

On July 21, 2016 Ric was at the hospital when he overheard Franco Baldwin try to persuade Liz to go on a date. Liz agreed to think about it, so Ric waited until Franco had left, then he approached Liz and invited her out for coffee during her break. Liz was curt, and she told him that she wanted nothing to do with him. Ric was hurt that she would give a reformed serial killer the time of day, but not him. Liz warned Ric that he had no room to judge Franco, but Ric explained that he was worried about her. Liz admitted that Franco had been honest with her, even about the difficult truths, which Ric had never been able to do with her. Liz reminded Ric that they were not friends, then she walked away.