A former acting chief executive of the Ulster Scots Agency in Belfast has had his prison sentence for a child sex offence doubled by a US judge.
Stan Mallon from Crumlin in Co Antrim must now serve 41 months in jail for arranging to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex in a hotel room in Chicago in 2002. He was also fined $5,000.
Assistant US Attorney Markus Funk said they had asked for an even tougher sentence.
In a statement issued through their solicitor, the Mallon family said they were deeply disappointed at the decision but pledged to remain totally supportive of him and stand by him at this difficult time.
Mallon was jailed for 21 months last March, after admitting using an Internet chatline to contact a girl who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
He originally escaped the maximum sentence of more than four years in prison after the judge ruled that he was suffering a diminished capacity.
But following an appeal by prosecutors who argued the original sentence was too lenient, it was extended.
Mallon will now remain in prison until February 2005.
