Family and friends in Washington's Irish-American community are to appeal for leniency in the sentencing of a man found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect after his baby daughter suffocated in the family van during a heatwave last May.
Family members of Kevin Kelly (46), a father of 13, left in tears after the jury returned their guilty verdicts in a Virginia suburb of Washington DC late on Wednesday.
Kelly was convicted of the May 29th death after leaving his 21-month-old daughter, Frances, in the van for seven hours.
His wife had flown back to Cork to take care of her sick father at the time and had hoped to bring him on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
Throughout the three-day trial, Kelly's defence team argued that he believed he had left Frances in the care of older siblings. Three of his children testified that he was a loving father who put his family first.
The prosecutor. Ms Sandra Sylvester, told the jury that she and the other prosecutors had to speak for Frances, who, she said, had died alone after a long period of neglect. She said that six weeks before Frances's death, the toddler was almost run over by a police cruiser when she wandered out on to the street unattended .
The officer involved told the court that he spoke to Kelly at the time and told him to take better care of his daughter.
"It's a wonder the child lived as long as she did," another prosecutor , Mr Paul Ebert, told the jury.
He also presented evidence that Frances had never seen the family doctor or received inoculations.
The jury found that Kelly did not intend to kill Frances but that his negligence led to her death.
He faces up to 15 years' imprisonment, but is expected to get a much lighter sentence, based on testimony from family and friends.
The case has attracted huge publicity in Washington, and was the lead article in the Washington Post yesterday, temporarily pushing to one side the threat of war with Iraq.
The Irish-American community in the Virginia suburbs of Washington had mounted a huge campaign to help the family and say that Kelly was a model father. Local politicians had also rallied behind the family, and had begged prosecutors to drop the case.
However, the campaign attracted a counter-response from Mr Ebert, who said he would not be put off the prosecution by an "organised campaign" by the local Catholic community.
"I can't run this office based on public opinion, no matter what it might be," he added.
Prosecutors say that Kelly had previously left his three-year-old son, Martin, behind at a video store. The boy had to be returned by sales clerks in the store.
A Republican Party politician, Mr Robert G. Marshall, described the Kellys as a model family and said Kevin was known as a devoted father. He described the Kellys as being "like an Irish Catholic family out of the 1950s" and said he knew them well through the local church.