Sentencing of a senior Northern Ireland civil servant who admitted arranging to meet a girl for under-age sex in the United States was last night delayed for 24 hours in Chicago.
Mr Stan Mallon (62), the ex-chief executive of the Ulster Scots Agency, from Crumlin, Co Antrim, faces a maximum of four years and three months in jail.
The father of five changed his initial plea of not guilty to guilty last October to a charge of using the Internet to attempt to persuade, induce and entice a juvenile to have sex.
The judge at the US District Court in Chicago said she was not fully enough briefed on the case to pass a jail sentence and delayed to today to give her time to study the file.
The 14-year-old girl, "Marny", who Mallon had arranged to meet after making contact on an Internet chat line, was an FBI agent working on another case.