A British Government consultant to one of Northern Ireland's cross-border bodies is in custody in the US facing child sex charges.
Sixty-two-year-old John Stan Mallon, a consultant with the agency which promotes the Ulster Scots language, is accused of communicating on an Internet chatline with what he believed to be a 14-year-old girl.
The person he was communicating with was actually a police officer. The Child Exploitation Unit of the Chicago Police Department arrested him outside a hotel last weekend.
It is alleged he was waiting to meet the girl he believed he'd been conversing with. It is thought that Mallon, using the name "Big Daddy Mel", had chatted online with her since early February.
He has been charged with using the Internet to coerce a child into having sex. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
Stormont Culture Minister Michael McGimpsey, whose department jointly runs the Ulster Scots Agency with the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, said Mr Mallon had been employed on a temporary basis.
Stan Mallon was acting as Interim Chief Executive of the Ulster Scots Agency in December 2001. Foras na Gaeilge and Tha Boord o Ulster-Scotch are the two constituent agencies of the Language Body, which is one of the six North/South Implementation Bodies.
