U.S. Seeks to Keep Mallon
By Sean O’Driscoll 

CHICAGO prosecutors are trying to stop convicted pedophile and former Ulster Scots Agency chief executive Stan Mallon from returning to Northern Ireland when he is released from a U.S. prison next month.

U.S. government attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has sought a stay on Mallon’s deportation until prosecutors have appealed for a higher sentence than the 21-month imprisonment imposed on Mallon in March for trying to procure a 14-year-old girl for sex. 

Mallon was in the U.S. on behalf of the cross-border funded Ulster Scots Agency when he was arrested at a Chicago hotel in March of 2002. He was due in Washington for official St Patrick’s week events on behalf of the Ulster Scots Agency. 

The organization was established under the Good Friday Agreement to promote the Ulster Scots dialect in Northern Ireland. 

In his application, Fitzgerald has said that any increase in sentence imposed by an appeal court would be pointless if Mallon is automatically deported when he is released from prison next month. 

Fitzgerald said that it was unlikely that prosecutors would succeed in extraditing Mallon back from Northern Ireland to serve any additional time imposed by the court.

An appeal court is due to oral arguments on September 18, the day after Mallon is to be released from prison, and will not return a verdict for some weeks afterwards. 

Fitzgerald said that, after Mallon is released, the U.S. attorney’s office would be happy to let a judge decide if he should be freed while the prosecutor’s appeal is being heard, or whether he should be held in a remand prison to stop him from returning to Northern Ireland voluntarily. 

Last week assistant U.S. attorney Marcus Funk filed appeal papers questioning why a district court departed from guidelines that required a 41-51 month sentence for Mallon, and instead imposed a 21-month sentence.

Funk noted that the district court had cited Mallon’s poor health and foreign nationality. Mallon had claimed in court that he was suffering from hallucinations when he made repeated email and telephone contact with an undercover policewoman he believed to be a 14-year-old girl. 

Contents of emails mentioned in Funk’s appeal documents last week show that Mallon had intended to bring the girl to Florida after he had taken part in functions in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Ulster Scots Agency. 

Other emails show that he warned the undercover policewoman not to use her home phone because his number could be traced. Another email warned that the “cops” should not find out about contact between them.