Child sex Belfast man 'must serve longer sentence'

A US appeal court has ruled that a former Northern Ireland official caught in an underage sex sting should have received a longer sentence.

John Mallon, 62, of Belfast was sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to using international communication lines to solicit a sheriff’s officer posing as a 14-year-old Chicago girl for sex.

Mallon, former head of the Ulster-Scots Agency, an organisation created under the Northern Ireland peace initiative, should have been sentenced to 41 to 51 months, the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled.

The three-judge appeals panel has sent the case back to US District Judge Joan Gottschall for resentencing.

At his trial, Judge Gottschall said Mallon’s long-term heart condition had affected his ability to control his impulses and thus propelled him into a scheme to have sexual relations with a girl he knew as “Marny”.

But Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote yesterday: “It is awfully hard to describe the crime to which Mallon confessed as the result of poor ‘impulse control’.

“Mallon communicated with Marny for more than a month and crossed the Atlantic to meet her. He knew that what he was doing was wrong; Mallon advised Marny not to tell her mother what was going on and to delete from her computer all copies of the communications.”

Mallon may suffer from some kind of mental problem, the court said.

“That would be true of almost every person who sets out to deceive and have sexual relations with underage girls he has never met.”

The court brushed aside other reasons cited by Judge Gottschall for giving Mallon a break, mainly that he was a foreign national and far from home.

Mallon had been due to visit the White House in March 2002. He flew to Chicago first to visit ”Marny”.

The appeals court said Mallon had been lying all along in his e-mail messages, telling the sheriff’s officer posing as Marny that he was a wealthy 47-year-old businessman, single and with no children.

In fact, he had been married for 40 years, had five children and 10 grandchildren. He retired from the civil service in 1995 to become a consultant.

The court said Mallon’s hotel room contained a gold necklace he planned to give to Marny and a video camera to record their encounter.

“Constables who later searched Mallon’s home found numerous sexually graphic communications between Mallon and other girls who represented that they had not reached the age of 16,” the court said.

Federal prosecutors appealed against the 21-month sentence as too light.

With time off for good behaviour, Mallon had been due for release on September 17 – one day before oral arguments in his case were due to take place in the appeal court. But the court ordered him held pending appeal.

Cynthia Giacchetti, who was Mallon’s defence lawyer, did not immediately return a call for comment last night.