It is one of the most famous photographs in American racing history: jockey Ron Turcotte rides a flower-garlanded Secretariat into the winner’s circle at Belmont Park racetrack in New York in 1973.
The victory made Secretariat a legend – the first horse in a quarter century to have achieved the Triple Crown, which lauds the capture by a three-year-old of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes in a single year.
In the foreground a man appears, striding confidently amid the crowds, sun-tanned, sporting large, full-rimmed sunglasses, wearing a beige jacket.
That man was Daniel Mullan.
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Today, 46 years later, the 79-year-old, tall, bearded Mullan is a convicted paedophile, in ill-health, being held in the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise.
Next week he will go before the Court of Appeal in Dublin to make his final challenge to an 18-month-long effort by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to extradite him to the United States.
Mullan, a former airline pilot, lived a gilded life until his downfall in 2015. He divided his time between the US and the Middle East, claiming links with Saudi royals, and visiting Ireland, his ancestral home, frequently.
His claims of high connections in Saudi Arabia are taken seriously. Indeed, the Garda Síochána was so concerned that it warned an Irish judge it feared he would flee there if granted bail.
The FBI is seeking Mullan, a dual US-Irish citizen with a home on Long Island, New York, on charges that he has been producing and selling child pornography “for at least 30 years”.
However, the FBI had known nothing about him until after the Irish-American came to the attention of the Garda in Co Mayo, following complaints in 2009.
Six years later, on October 22nd, 2015, Mullan pleaded guilty at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court to two sexual assault charges, two counts of possessing child pornography and one of attempted buggery.
There, Judge Rory McCabe said Mullan had only admitted his guilt at the “59th minute of the 11th hour”, while the jury sat in the waiting room. He had no previous convictions.
Grooming his victim
Mullan had become friendly with his victim’s family when the boy was just seven in the mid 1990s. He groomed the boy over a number of years, initially subjecting him to minor sexual assaults. In one instance
the boy was given a £10 note by Mullan for a photograph of the abuse. Over a number of summers Mullan exploited the boy, plying him with drink, sharing child pornography and forcing him to engage in sex.
He was sentenced to 8½ years in prison, but this was subsequently cut to five years by the Court of Appeal, which meant he was due for release on October 16th, 2017.
It was the day Storm Ophelia – the worst storm to hit Ireland in decades – was battering the country. The whole country, bar frontline emergency services, was shut down.
By now the FBI had begun looking into Mullan’s activities and was seeking his extradition. Detectives from the Garda’s extradition unit had obtained a warrant from the FBI for Mullan’s arrest. He had a car and a driver waiting for him outside prison as well as two flights booked to Dubai in his name – one departing from Dublin, the other from Belfast airport.
Indeed, Mullan had prepared his departure plans thoroughly, since he had a third flight booked to Dubai for the previous Friday – in case he was released early.
Det Sgt Jim Kirwan of the Garda’s extradition unit had laid plans to prevent his departure, organising the paperwork in Garda Headquarters, while a local detective was dispatched from Portlaoise Garda station to the jail.
Two weeks later Mullan found himself sitting in a wheelchair in a courtroom, complaining that he could not hear what Det Sgt Kirwan was telling the judge.
“Despite his appearance before the court,” said Det Sgt Kirwan, “I have no doubt that he will use every effort to flee this jurisdiction. I cannot express to the court how much I believe that, Judge.”
"He has access to quite substantial amounts of money ... I also have serious concern, Judge, that he will interfere with witnesses in this case, and he stated so in his affidavit," according to a court transcript seen by The Irish Times.
Lawyers for the Minister for Justice, heavy-hitting barristers Remy Farrell and Ronan Kennedy, brought the detective through the reasons why gardaí were objecting to bail.
“I think there is also a concern in terms of connections Mr Mullan might have with members of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, is that correct?” Farrell asked the detective.
“Yes, and he refers to it in his own affidavit, but I am also aware that he was a frequent traveller to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and many other countries, including European countries,” the detective replied.
Mullan claimed he could not hear what the detective was saying about him, though Ms Justice Donnelly told his lawyers: “I think if your client had actually spent time listening instead of talking, you might have been able to deal with some of it.”
Mullan’s wheelchair was moved closer to the witness box.
Saudi connections
“In relation to one of the flights,” Farrell asked the detective, “the flight from Dublin to Dubai, I think that was a first-class flight, is that correct?”
“It was indeed, yes,” replied Kirwan. “He had documentation when his home was searched, which related to … the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” – a title held by the king of Saudi Arabia.
“There was also a piece of luggage recovered from his home in the US, which related to King Abdullah Bin Abullaziz Al-Saud” – the former king of Saudi Arabia, who died in 2015 and was succeeded by his brother, Salman, the current king.
Mullan also claimed ties to Prince Turki Bin Abdullah Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia, the detective said, according to a court transcript.
Prince Turki Bin Abdullah was detained by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, the king’s son, in Riyadh last year and his whereabouts are unknown. No allegations have been or are being made against any Saudi in relation to the Mullan case.
The judge refused bail at the beginning of proceedings in November 2017, and ultimately ordered his surrender to US authorities on December 14th, 2018.
Mullan has been funding his Irish High Court extradition battle with his own resources, without the benefit of legal aid. To that end he hired top criminal defence solicitor Cahir O’Higgins and barrister Kieran Kelly, an expert in extradition.
He is appealing Ms Justice Donnelly’s decision to extradite him in the Court of Appeal next Tuesday.
During their investigations, US authorities opened a safe deposit box alleged to belong to Mullan in New York, as part of their investigations in 2017, according to reliable sources.
Inside they found multiple $10,000 bundles of $100 bills, Swiss Francs as well as several Rolex watches. Some of the money was in envelopes bearing official Saudi insignia.
In addition detectives found a business card from the late King Abdullah. It was embossed with the words “With Compliments”; “Private Affairs”.
There were several receipts from Jeddah, a Saudi city, including a receipt from a local firm with a handwritten reference to “credit for boys” alongside a numerical figure. Several envelopes containing cash had “Dan Mullan” printed in Arabic on their front. Again, no allegations have been made, or are being made against any Saudi figures.
A life unravelled
Mullan’s gilded life unravelled, following the lodgement of the complaint against him by his Irish victim in 2009. On his next trip to Ireland he was arrested and questioned by gardaí.
He was released without charge after questioning, and a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The following day he boarded a flight to France.
The next chapter in the story took four years to develop. In 2013, US Marshals in the New York and New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force received a request from a district court in Mayo for assistance in finding Mullan.
He was arrested at his home address of Wellington Road, Elmont, New York, charged with being a fugitive and eventually extradited to Ireland.
He was taken off the aircraft by Det Sgt Kirwan. It would not be the last time the two men encountered each other. While Mullan was serving his sentence in Portlaoise, the FBI was alerted to allegations made against Mullan in the United States.
According to FBI special agent Cindy Wolff, in an affidavit grounding the US extradition request, Mullan contacted a man in the US from prison in Ireland some time in 2014.
Mullan had known this person since he was a teenager. He would later tell the FBI that Mullan had picked him up from school when he was aged 15 or 16, paid him $100, and then Mullan videotaped him masturbating. He would go on to become known as Witness 1 in the extradition material, but was still apparently loyal to Mullan when they spoke over the phone.
Witness 1 was asked to “take care of Mullan’s stuff while Mullan was away”. He did as he was asked. He got keys to Mullan’s home from another man, who was “like an adopted son” to Mullan, and changed the locks.
Witness 1 believed Mullan had adopted “several boys” in the 1960s and 1970s, though no official documentation has been found to support that belief.
FBI agent Wolff states that Witness 1 became curious in early 2017 as to whether Mullan still had the videotape of him masturbating.
He went to Mullan’s home in Elmont to find out. There, the FBI says, Witness 1 viewed six to eight videotapes containing images of himself dating from the 1980s and 1990s, allegedly containing child pornography.
On June 16th, 2017, on foot of a warrant, the FBI searched Mullan’s home and found a “massive collection of child pornography, some of which was homemade and featured Mullan himself engaged in sexually explicit conduct with minor boys”, the FBI alleges.
It is alleged that “large quantities” of storage media – both digital and analogue – were recovered, including VHS tapes, 8mm film tapes, CD-Roms, DVDs, floppy disks, hard drives and laptops, all of which allegedly contained child pornography.
Witness 2
It is alleged that several videotapes showed Mullan having sex with a young boy. Agents were able to determine the identity of this boy, who is known as Witness 2, according to the extradition material.
Witness 2 had known Mullan since he was eight years old. He told police that Mullan began abusing him when he was 11 or 12 and continued doing so for years, in his home, as well as in Amsterdam, London and other locations in the US.
In each location, he said, Mullan videotaped the alleged activity and, on at least one occasion, Mullan engaged in negotiations with another individual to sell child porn while Witness 2 was in the room.
The trail from Mullan’s house led law enforcement officers to a storage lock-up at Spagnoli Road, Melville, New York. There, a search uncovered “another large collection of child pornography, including depictions of Mullan engaged in sexually explicit conduct with minors”.
Based on the evidence found in Mullan’s home and the storage lock-up, the FBI alleges Mullan has been producing child pornography for decades; and that he filmed himself and others in sexually explicit conduct with minors, as well as minors performing sexually explicit conduct on themselves.
On September 7th, 2017, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York indicted Mullan on four counts – sexual exploitation of a child, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in sexual activity and two counts of possessing child pornography. A warrant was issued for Mullan’s arrest, which subsequently came across the desk of Det Sgt Kirwan.
Forty years before Mullan had helped to train Secretariat. The 2010 biographical film Secretariat chronicles the story of the owner, renowned horse breeder Helen "Penny" Chenery, played by Diane Lane, and the horse's trainer, Lucien Laurin, played by John Malkovich.
Mullan remains proud of his association with the horse, referencing it in one of the affidavits presented to the courts in Ireland.
Reports from the New York Times at the time refer to Mullan as a foreman of the Meadow Stable barn at Belmont Park in New York State.
The articles refer to Mullan's legal adoption of an orphan, who finished last in his first race as a jockey. It was a "golden moment" for the youngster, as well as Mullan, according to the New York Times.
“I’ve been waiting three years for this,” Mullan was reported as saying when he watched his adopted son steer the horse on to the track.
“[Redacted] was born [abroad], but he was abandoned here,” said Mullan. “His parents are both dead now, he never knew them. But he knows what happened. No secrets, no regrets. You can’t find a better kid.”