NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A Brooklyn federal jury on Tuesday convicted a former NYPD sergeant of working as an agent for China by attempting to repatriate a former Chinese official who fled to the U.S. after he was accused of accepting millions of dollars in bribes.
Michael McMahon, 55, was convicted of participating in a scheme dubbed “Operation Fox Hunt," in which he and two other agents stalked and threatened Xu Jin, the former head of the municipal development division in Wuhan who has been living in New Jersey for 13 years.
McMahon became a private eye after retiring from the force and now lives in Mahwah, New Jersey. He was tried alongside Congying Zheng and Yong Zhu, who were also convicted on Tuesday.
Between 2016 and 2019, the trio sent threatening messages to Xu, tried to coerce him by leveraging family members and gathered information on him.
McMahon used law enforcement and government databases to gather information on Xu that he then handed off to other Chinese agents.
He also spied on Xu and his sister at their respective homes in New Jersey.
The jury convicted McMahon of illegally acting as a foreign agent, stalking and interstate stalking conspiracy. He was acquitted of conspiracy to act as an foreign agent.
He faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing.
“The jury’s verdict confirms that defendants McMahon and Zhu knowingly acted at the direction of a hostile foreign state to harass, intimidate and attempt to cause the involuntary return of a resident of the New York metropolitan area to the People’s Republic of China, and that defendant Zheng harassed and intimidated that same person and his family,” stated U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. “It is particularly troubling that defendant Michael McMahon, a former sergeant in the New York City Police Department, engaged in surveillance, harassment, and stalking on behalf of a foreign power for money.”
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