ShareThisBy OMAR EL AKKAD
Friday, November 17, 2006
American teacher Malcolm Watson, who became the center of a cross-border row after a judge ruled he could serve probation in Canada for a sex offense committed in Buffalo, N.Y., now faces the prospect of being booted out of the country.
Watson, a 35-year-old who was convicted of low-level sex charges related to a 15-year-old student, was arrested Thursday trying to cross into Canada. As part of his plea bargain, he had requested to spend his sentence of three years' probation in Fort Erie, Ontario, where he lives with his wife and children.
However, the sentence raised the ire of provincial and federal politicians in Canada, turning what was supposed to be a straightforward deal into a political lightning rod.
On his way back from a meeting with his probation officer in Buffalo, Watson was detained at the border. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has made it clear the government wants Watson out of the country.
According to Frank Clark, the Erie County, N.Y., district attorney who approved Watson's initial sentence, the convicted sex offender will almost certainly receive the same sentence if he returns to Buffalo, except he will be closer to the watchful eyes of probation officers _ and to his victim.
"As well intended as (the first sentence) may have been, it would not be repeated again," Clark said.
"As someone said, it looks like I'm King George sending English prisoners to Australia," Clark said, "except I'm sending all our sex prisoners to Fort Erie, which is totally not true."
When Watson was caught with a 15-year-old student in a Buffalo shopping mall parking lot last April, few suspected his tryst would transform into an international political incident.
The English teacher had grown dangerously close to a 15-year-old student. That relationship would form the basis both for his crimes, and his unusual sentence.
"During negotiations he agreed to plead guilty to the two principal offenses," Clark said. That would effectively give prosecutors most of what they wanted, including Watson's name on the sex-offender registry and an order not to contact his victim. But the district attorney's office also didn't want a public trial, especially because of the effect it would have on Watson's young victim.
"She was in love with him," Clark said. "She didn't want to be the means of his public disgrace and downfall."
So the district attorney's office agreed to three years of probation. However, Watson returned with one last request: He wanted to serve his sentence in Fort Erie.
Clark said his office was wary about sending a convicted criminal to another jurisdiction, since there is always the potential he could flee. However, they were afraid that saying no could prove a deal-breaker, thrusting the victim and her family into the public trial they so feared. So Watson was allowed to serve his sentence in Canada.
