After a judge convicted him of sexually abusing a 15-year-old student, teacher Malcolm Watson was offered two punishment options: an American jail cell or exile to Canada.
Mr. Watson chose Canada.
The unusual sentence, which has immigration lawyers questioning its legality, means that Mr. Watson, 35, must stay out of the United States for the next three years. A U.S. citizen who taught at the elite Buffalo Seminary girls' school, he has a Canadian wife and family.
Mr. Watson's Canadian exile, which begins today, has the legal community scratching its head. Robert Kolken, a Buffalo immigration lawyer, said he has never heard of a similar case.
"I don't see how a judge sitting in a criminal court in the U.S. can lawfully banish a citizen as a condition of sentencing," he said.
Even Mr. Watson's lawyer, Oscar Smukler, said he was surprised by the deal. "We did some research on the question of whether Canada might consider throwing [Watson] out, which would make him a man without a country," he said.
Mr. Watson's odd legal saga began last April, when a mall security guard at a Cheektowaga shopping mall noticed him sitting in a parked car for two hours with a 15-year-old girl. Mr. Watson was criminally charged, and quickly fired from his position at the school, where he was known as a charismatic teacher.
In August, he was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child and third-degree sexual abuse.
Under the sentence imposed by Cheektowaga Town Court, Mr. Watson must remain in Canada, and can enter the United States only to report to his probation officer. Mr. Watson has a wife and three children in Fort Erie, Ont.
Erie County district attorney Frank Clark called the plea deal "a little dicey" but said the family of the 15-year-old victim was happy. So were some U.S. law-enforcement officials: "He's Canada's problem, not ours," said one, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Watson's odd sentence has attracted the attention of Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg.
Although he refrained from commenting on the case for privacy reasons, Mr. Solberg used tough language to describe how Canada would deal with non-Canadians convicted of crimes elsewhere.
"If non-citizens pose a threat to Canada, we will do everything in our power to have that person removed as quickly as possible," he said.
The negotiated deal was designed to spare the 15-year-old victim from testifying in court, Mr. Clark said, and achieved two goals: Mr. Watson wanted to "return to Canada to be reunited with his family," while the parents of the victim wanted to ensure that Mr. Watson had no contact with their daughter.
"They hope he stays in Canada for the next 500 years," Mr. Clark said.
Under the terms of his guilty plea, Mr. Watson must have no contact with the victim until his probation ends in 2009, and register with New York state as a "level one" sex offender, the lowest level, for 20 years.
Mr. Watson's plea deal was first announced in August, before Cheektowaga Town Court Justice Thomas Kolbert, but the formal sentence will be made today.
Until now, Mr. Watson has been travelling back and forth across the border to make court appearances. Since being fired from the school, he has been working as a salesman in Fort Erie.
With a report from Associated Press
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Sexual abuse sentence: three years in Canada
