Former Penn professor and convicted sex felon Tracy McIntosh has been fired from his six-month research job in Milan, Italy. He returned to the United States on Tuesday.
According to Assistant District Attorney Chris Mallios, officials at the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan were not aware that McIntosh was a convicted sex offender when they gave him the job.
"They did not have the full story about this man," Mallios said.
McIntosh, 52, was charged with sexually assaulting the 23-year-old niece of a close friend in his Hayden Hall office after both visited several campus bars. He pleaded no contest to sexual assault in December 2004.
Mallios added that the Italian media had tipped off hospital administrators to McIntosh's past after discovering his conviction in American news reports.
There was speculation at a hearing on Jan. 25 that colleagues of McIntosh's at the Italian hospital -- which used to send students to study in McIntosh's Penn lab -- may have helped him get hired there.
McIntosh also never acquired a work visa, which is mandatory for any foreign citizen working in Italy. Thomas Bergstrom, McIntosh's attorney, has said that the hospital told McIntosh he did not need a visa.
Bergstrom said he had alerted the Philadelphia probation office of McIntosh's return to the United States. He added that although McIntosh has returned to the Philadelphia area, he will not be under house arrest.
McIntosh was released from house arrest in November by Judge Rayford Means after serving only six months of an 11-and-a-half to 23-month sentence.
"He has served his time," Bergstrom said.
Mallios is making sure the city Probation Department is in fact aware of McIntosh's return.
The former neurosurgery professor took the job in Italy in order "to feed his family" and pay restitution to his victim, Bergstrom said. McIntosh has paid $4,300 of the stipulated $20,000.
Penn spokeswoman Lori Doyle said the University had no official comment about McIntosh's return.
"Since he is no longer affiliated with Penn, we've tried as best we can to stay out of it," Doyle said.
Penn officials requested McIntosh's resignation from the Neurosurgery Department in the School of Medicine after McIntosh's no-contest plea.
A hearing had been scheduled for Feb. 8 in which Means would have decided whether to order McIntosh to return to the United States. The district attorney's office argued that it had never been informed of Means' decision to allow McIntosh to work abroad.
Mallios said that the upcoming hearing is probably "moot" now, although there is still an outstanding motion for Means to recuse himself from the case, made after questions of the judge's impartiality were raised.
Means -- who could not be reached for comment -- has not yet ruled on this motion, Mallios said.
