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President Donald Trump has issued a pardon for Michael McMahon, a former New York police sergeant who was convicted of aiding China in an effort to force a former officer to return to his country. The case was a prominent example of efforts by US officials to counter Beijing’s broader efforts to suppress critics abroad.
McMahon was sentenced to 18 months in prison this spring for his involvement in what a federal judge called an “international campaign of repression.” He consistently maintained his innocence, saying that he was “unknowingly used” after taking a straightforward private-investigator assignment. McMahon claimed that he was informed that he was working for a Chinese construction company, not the country’s government.
A White House official speaking anonymously Friday regarding the unannounced pardon highlighted McMahon’s explanation that he was misled. The officer also noted McMahon’s distinguished 14-year career with the NYPD, which included dozens of commendations before his retirement due to a 2001 injury.
McMahon’s attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said the pardon “corrects a terrible injustice.”
“I will always believe that it was the Chinese government that victimized Policeman Mike, a true hero who our government should have celebrated and honored instead of blaming,” Lustberg said by email.
brooklynThe U.S.-based federal prosecutors’ office that brought the case declined to comment.
A jury convicted McMahon, 58, of charges that included acting as an illegal foreign agent and stalking. He was released from prison to a halfway house earlier this year and moved back into his home new Jersey home on Friday, his lawyer said.
McMahon received endorsements from U.S. Representatives Mike Lawler, R-N.J., and Pete Sessions, R-.texasHe wrote to the court last year to support McMahon’s claim of innocence and urged the judge to spare him jail.
Lawler praised the apology Friday, writing on X that the former officer “should never have been prosecuted to begin with.” A message seeking comment was sent to Sessions’ office.
McMahon was one of three people convicted in the first trial based on US claims China’s decade-old “Operation Fox Hunt” initiative. His co-defendants, both Chinese nationals, were also sentenced to prison, where they will remain. Messages seeking comment were sent Friday to lawyers for the men, who denied the allegations.
Three other people pleaded guilty in the case, and another five defendants are still at large, believed to be in China.
US officials have, in at least some instances, viewed “Operation Fox Hunt” as a tool of “transnational repression” – a term for sending government operatives to harass, intimidate, and silence dissidents living abroad.
Beijing Says it is just trying to bring back fugitives, including corrupt officials, and denies threatening to ensure their return.
The case involving McMahon focused on a former Chinese city official named Xu Jin, who had moved to the suburbs with his family. new Jersey in 2010. The Chinese government has accused him and his wife of bribery. The couple denied the allegation and said they were unfairly targeted due to internal politics of China’s Communist government.
China has no extradition treaty with the United States, so it could not legally force Xu’s return. Instead, US prosecutors said, Beijing used years of creepy overreach and manipulation to induce him to come back.
McMahon, hired by co-defendants to locate Zoo, searched and monitored law enforcement and government databases. He and Lustberg acknowledged that McMahon missed raising “red flags” about the $11,000 job, but said that their clients had deceived them and that they did not think the information would be used to harass Xu.
“I never thought for a minute that I was working for China, stalking someone,” McMahon said at sentencing.
Prosecutors and trial witnesses said Xu faced a pressure campaign that included abusive Facebook messages to her adult daughter’s friends, several letters to a relative in New Jersey and a shocking visit from her 80-year-old father, who flew in from China to pressure his son to return.
Finally, Xu’s wife found a note on their front door, which translated as: “If you are willing to return to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be fine. That’s the end of this matter!”
Xu said in the lawsuit that before seeing the note he thought Chinese Communist PartyThe proposals were “only a mental threat to me.”
“However, when I saw that note, I realized it had become a physical threat,” Xu testified through a court interpreter.