Ex-NY Police Sergeant Sentenced to 18 Months for Serving as Illegal Agent for the CCP
Michael McMahon was employed as a private investigator, claiming he was unaware that his employer was the Chinese communist regime.
On April 16, former New York City Police Sergeant Michael McMahon was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of serving as an illegal agent of China.
McMahon was one of three individuals convicted in 2023 for stalking Xu Jin, a former Chinese official, and his family residing in New Jersey. This was part of the CCP’s global initiative known as “Operation Fox Hunt,” aimed at compelling the return of alleged criminals.
He was the last among the trio to be sentenced.
The ex-police officer maintained his innocence regarding all charges, asserting he was misled into believing he was merely working for a firm seeking to recover misappropriated funds. He remarked that he would not have accepted the position had he known it was tied to the Chinese communist government.
“I was unwittingly used,” he stated during the court proceedings.
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McMahon garnered support from two Republican congressmen, Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who wrote to U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen, appealing for leniency in his sentencing.
Hired as a private investigator to monitor Xu, who faced corruption accusations from the CCP, McMahon played a significant role in locating Xu’s address.
McMahon was acquitted of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent.
The convictions of McMahon and his co-defendants were part of the federal government’s effort to combat what officials term the CCP’s transnational repression.
“The conviction of these three defendants—including a retired NYPD sergeant—serves as a potent reminder of the Chinese government’s ongoing, pervasive, and unlawful actions on U.S. soil,” said then-Assistant Director Suzanne Turner of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in 2023.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray remarked in 2020 that CCP leader Xi Jinping was using Operation Fox Hunt to target individuals globally perceived as threats to the regime.
Frank Fang, Alex Wu, and Reuters contributed to this report.
