Horse trainer Dan Mullan of Elmont sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually abusing children

A former racehorse trainer from Elmont accused of sexually abusing numerous children over three decades and possessing what court papers called “a massive trove of child pornography” was sentenced Monday in Central Islip federal court to 30 years in prison.

Dan Mullan, 84, an assistant trainer of legendary Triple Crown winner Secretariat, engaged in sexual acts with boys from the 1980s through the 2000s. Mullan pleaded guilty in November to sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. 

Mullan often filmed those encounters, according to prosecutors, who said they have identified a dozen child victims but have been unable to determine the total number of children abused by the globe-trotting horse trainer.

The presentencing report, according to U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown, said the stash of DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, 8 mm films, hard drives and laptops seized from Mullan’s Wellington Road home and a storage unit in Melville covered four wooden palettes. 

“In 30 years on the bench, I’ve rarely seen a case of this magnitude and severity,” Brown said before he sentenced Mullan to 360 months in prison, or 30 years, the maximum sentence. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Maffei said Mullan’s crimes went far beyond possession of child pornography. Many of the recordings seized by the FBI featured Mullan in sexual acts with boys, according to Maffei, who said the numerous assaults he committed on children destroyed numerous lives and families. 

“He raped many individuals over the course of decades,” Maffei said. 

Mullan entered Brown’s courtroom in a wheelchair and suffers from a long list of health problems, defense attorney Nancy Bartling said. She asked the judge to impose a 10-year sentence, the minimum mandatory sentence, which she said amounted to life in prison, given Mullan’s age and his health. 

Mullan declined to address the court, but Bartling said after the sentencing that the disgraced horse trainer had privately expressed remorse. 

According to court papers, Mullan traveled across the United States and abroad with the boys identified as victims by the FBI. Most were in their teens when the abuse began but one was 8 or 9 years old. That victim told investigators that Mullan had trafficked him in this country and internationally. Another said Mullan tried to convince him to have sex with the horse trainer’s adult friends, court papers said.

Mullan was extradited from the United States to Ireland in 2014 in a separate case in which he pleaded guilty in 2016 to sexual assault and other charges, including the production of child pornography between 2000 and 2005, according to court papers.

While in custody in Ireland, prosecutors said, Mullan asked a victim to serve as a caretaker for his property in the United States. That victim went to Mullan’s Elmont home to locate a sex videotape Mullan made with him. 

While searching the home, the victim found more than a half-dozen videos of boys, most of which depicted the defendant engaging in sex acts. He also found Polaroid photos of nude boys. The victim called the FBI and reported what he found — and what Mullan had done to him, court papers say.

The FBI and Suffolk police served search warrants in the summer of 2017 on Mullan’s Elmont home and the Melville rental unit. Several of the videos date back to the early 1980s, prosecutors said. 

Another search warrant executed on a safe-deposit box located over $300,000 in cash that Mullan had intended to use as “hush money” for one of his victims.

“Today’s sentence is a just punishment for the defendant’s years of heinous acts against minors and sends a message to all who seek to harm innocent children,” said Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.