Facing deportation, wealthy patriarch wants to withdraw guilty plea

Sean O'Neill, the patriarch of a family whose contagious misfortunes have repeatedly made headlines, wants to withdraw the guilty plea he entered in 2009 to immigration, tax, and weapons charges.

O'Neill, an illegal immigrant and self-made millionaire who agreed to return to Northern Ireland after completing his 18-month sentence, says he received ineffective counsel from Michael Schwartz, his former attorney, Schwartz's work as a former  prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office may have posed a conflict with representing him, O'Neill says.

He also contends that Schwartz persuaded him that the plea would spare his wife, Eileen, from prosecution on tax charges without determining the validity of the case against her. In addition, he says that he did not realize his deportation could be permanent. He will appear tomorrow before U.S. District Judge William Yohn, who imposed the sentence.

While O'Neill was awaiting trial, his daughter, Roisin, drove drunk on Sept. 19 in the wrong direction on I-476 in Plymouth Township, killing Patricia M. Waggoner, 63, a Brimfield, Mass., grandmother. She is serving a 5- to 10-year prison sentence. As she was facing charges, her brother returned home after completing two juvenile treatment programs. He is now parenting a special-needs daughter.