One Foreign Teacher's Pedophilia Lands Another in Jail
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In November 2012, a mother of twins who were studying at Lycée Français de Shanghai showed up at the school complaining that she walked in on her daughters' English tutor— an American called Hector Orjuela, Jr. — molesting one of the kids in the basement of their family home.
Orjuela was not working at Lycée Français de Shanghai at the time, he left the school about two years before the incident. The mother had met him while shopping and he told him that he had worked at the school that her daughters are attending. He also said that he knows David McMahon, the teacher who was teaching the woman's twins at the school at the time.
"It was shocking to all of us. The guy worked here two or three years ago. I knew him at work, but we didn't socialize outside of work. I didn't know him well, but he worked here for two years and a lot of people here remember him.
Obviously, we had no idea he was a pedophile," McMahon emailed his friend and former colleague Hannah Miller, shortly after speaking to the twins' mother.
Orjuela was later interviewed by Chinese and US law enforcement, he confessed to having molested one of the twins and attempting to molest the other. A search on his gadgets revealed huge amounts of child pornography, including images that have been taken by Orjuela. Along with this, he also admitted to having abused a 7-year-old girl during a visit to Maryland in the summer of 2012.
Orjuela was deported so he can face trial in the US, where he was eventually convicted on multiple counts and sentenced to 30-years in prison.
The twins' mother traveled to the US to testify against Orjuela, telling the court, "there are times when I would like to go to sleep and never wake up again so that I no longer have to see the suffering and the pain in the eyes of my daughters."
With Orjuela gone and justice served, came another witch hunt which has landed McMahon in jail in Shanghai's Qingpu Prison. But why and how?
David McMahon poses for a photo during a trip to Inner Mongolia before his incarceration, in northern China.
Although the perpetrator had been dealt with, the mother of the twins was still angry at McMahon, believing he was friends with Orjuela. The accussation that McMahon still disputes, he said:
"I knew him at work, but we didn't socialize outside of work. I didn't know him well..."
McMahon had joined the school in 2008, four years after he arrived in China from Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, where he'd been a high school teacher. The 32-year-old was adored by his students, according to two educators who worked alongside him.
"We used to tease him, because we would get off the bus and the kids would swarm around Dee, like a rockstar, trying to hug him," Ismail said, using his nickname.
But being popular with kids became a nightmare instead of a gift because seeing her girls being close with another American man in the school, (to make matters even worse) one whom Orjuela had given as a reference, appears to have given the twins' mother a deep sense of disquiet, and she would become suspicious of his motivations.
Her concerns were echoed by the girls' psychologist, who emailed the headmaster of the French School, Eric Veteau, on April 10, 2013, to warn that the twins had grown "too intimate" with McMahon, referring to him as someone who was playing "the role of the mother" with them.
Veteau called McMahon and his supervisor, Laurent Delattre, in for a meeting, and told him not to hug the girls, court documents state. According to a description of the meeting McMahon gave to his friend Miller, he replied angrily that he never initiated hugs, but it was difficult to refuse a five-year-old, especially when they had been through trauma.
Linnea, McMahon's then girlfriend and now wife, said he was left in a bind by the girls' obvious need for comfort. "In some ways, if a child tries to hug you and you push them away, that could be a lot more traumatic for them," she said.
Two days after the twins' psychologist emailed Veteau, Diplomatic Security Service agents at the US Consulate requested McMahon come in for an interview. He thought the agents, who work under the State Department and in close cooperation with the FBI, wanted to talk about Orjuela, who was due to go on trial in the US.
But after about 30 minutes, the focus turned to McMahon. "(It) was a full on interrogation," he wrote to his friend. "The guy says we must have been close because we were both Americans. I said he was (being) ridiculous.
He asked me about my sexual history, who I'd dated, how many women during that time. He asked me why I like to work with young kids, do they hug me, am I attracted to them, all this sh*t."
McMahon was disturbed by this, writing that "an accusation alone is enough to ruin a person's career."
The US Consulate in Shanghai. McMahon was interviewed here by State Department agents.
The twins' mother whose name is withheld to protect children's identity, said she had spoken to her daughters about McMahon during a family holiday to Thailand in the spring of 2013. That was soon after the school told McMahon not to hug them.
On returning to Shanghai, the mother immediately contacted the police and raised the alarm to other parents in her daughters' class. On May 13, the day after she alerted the authorities, McMahon was picked up by police at the school and taken to pre-trial detention, where he would spend the next month before he was officially charged, as is the normal procedure in China.
Once there was a suggestion that McMahon, like Orjuela could have preyed on the twins, "there was just mass hysteria," Ismail, one of McMahon's colleagues said. "The parents started panicking, started rallying other people to ask their kids about Dee."
The day McMahon was arrested, two other children came forward with accusations against McMahon, while on May 16 that year, the second twin daughter lodged an accusation against him. Two other accusers would come forward during the investigation.
McMahon's defenders believe the mother and other parents, traumatized by Orjuela's crimes, were on high alert for any potential danger to their children, and this may have caused them to misinterpret normal behavior as predatory or to press their children to support their suspicions.
In an email sent to a group of parents on May 15, Paul, nickname of the father of one of the children, said "our child (told us) that it happened with many students ... I strongly advise you to have a discussion with your child as soon as possible."
Throughout May and June, the parents of the initial accusers urged others to question their children and testify against McMahon, according to texts and emails seen by CNN.
According to three former and one current member of staff at the Lycée Français, parents at the school had access to each other's email addresses through a class mailing list, used for arranging field trips and other events.
Many also knew each other both socially and professionally. In its verdict, the court also noted that the school, "briefed the parents about the situation through emails and parents' meetings," an understandable move that may have nevertheless played into the panic spreading through the community.
Brian Sullivan, a former employee, said the French community "was much tighter" than at other schools where he'd taught, and parents were "more close knit and more involved."
In the email to parents, Paul wrote that McMahon "raged for many years in the school and it is urgent to know the extent of damage. I cannot remain silent, it is my duty as a parent to inform you."
Neither Paul nor the twins' mother responded to requests for comment.
On July 1, Paul's wife texted another parent at the school, nicknamed Katie, to say their son saw McMahon abusing her child, according to an exchange seen by CNN. On questioning, Katie's son said nothing had happened, she wrote in a statement provided to McMahon's defense team and shared with CNN.
During the trial, communication between parents was one of the key points McMahon's legal team raised in his defense. McMahon's lawyers argued that the parents may have influenced each other and their children's testimony, sharing stories and suggesting potentially leading questions.
This argument was dismissed by the court, which said in its verdict "parents cannot be expected to remain silent and not contact other parents when they know there are other children who may have been molested."
Of the more than 30 students Linnea, McMahon's wife, said McMahon taught across two classes -- Homeroom and English -- six came forward with accusations, while one testified to witnessing abuse.
No forensic or physical evidence was introduced to tie McMahon to his alleged crimes. While this is not necessarily unusual in child molestation cases -- due to the delay which often occurs between the crime and it being reported -- it does put extra onus on witness testimony to be fully accurate.
In most jurisdictions, this can present a problem for prosecutors, as children, especially young ones, are known to be susceptible to making false or misleading testimony if they are questioned in a leading manner, such as being asked to confirm that they had the same experiences as another child, rather than being encouraged to describe something freely.
"For more than a century, there has been a question about the reliability of child testimony and this concern has centered around heightened suggestibility in children," writes lawyer Wendy Koen in "The Psychology and Sociology of Wrongful Convictions."
Koen uses as a case study of the experience of John Stoll, who was convicted in California in 1985 on 17 counts of child molestation, based on the testimony of six children aged six to nine.
"Unaware of how suggestible children can be when interviewed incorrectly, social workers (had) pulled horrible stories of sexual abuse from all the children interviewed," Koen writes, much of which was contradictory or not possible, but was effective in initially convicting Stoll.
Stoll's conviction was finally overturned in 2004 after four of the witnesses, now adults, recanted and said they had been coerced into making false allegations.
According to a report by the California Innocence Project, which worked on Stoll's case, recantation is often the only hope for exoneration in cases where a conviction is based solely on child testimony.
"Child sex abuse exonerations primarily involve fabricated crimes," the report said, referencing a study by the National Registry of Exonerations and others. "The false accusations are by large produced by pressure on the children from relatives, police officers, or therapists; these accusations generally unravel when the witnesses recant."
In their submission to the court, McMahon's lawyers said video testimony played during the trial showed that witnesses appeared to have been "induced to make their statements and significantly modified their statements" in response to pressure from "their parents and/or investigators."
McMahon was tried at the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court.
Of the seven children who testified against McMahon, all described a similar situation: molestation of the genitals or buttocks, either in the "library" section of the classroom, or in front of the class after other children had been ordered to turn around.
In finding McMahon guilty, the court gave him an "aggravated" sentence on the grounds that "he molested a number of children in the presence of other people in public places including the classrooms in the school repeatedly over a long period of time."
According to multiple former and current members of staff at the French School, the circumstances described in the witness testimony were extremely unlikely.
"Most of the classrooms had your regular-sized windows, his had these big windows," said Ismail, McMahon's former colleague. "David used to be so upset, saying I have these kids who struggle to pay attention and they just look at everyone walking by and get distracted."
As for the library section, which the court focused on as a potential location where children could have been molested in private, "it's not separated, it's a little library corner where the kids sit in a circle," she said.
Two former and one current member of staff confirmed these descriptions. "It was like teaching in an aquarium," former colleague Brian Elkin said of the classroom.
Nor did McMahon teach any of his classes alone. There was always a Chinese or French co-teacher helping with the students, as well as caretakers who regularly came in to the class to help tidy up after lessons, three former colleagues said.
Sullivan said he split classes similarly to McMahon, teaching alongside French and Chinese colleagues, and that "in my classroom, if there was anything going wrong or going poorly, the students would definitely confide with the French teacher."
Lesley Murray, who worked alongside McMahon, said she did not believe any of the accusations; as did another teacher who requested anonymity as they still work at the school. Two others did not respond to interview requests.
While they were interviewed by police, McMahon's lawyers were unable to call any of his co-teachers -- Chinese or foreign -- to testify at his trial. When this issue was raised during McMahon's unsuccessful appeal, the court stated that his co-teacher sometimes "had to leave due to errands, thus Petitioner McMahon had the conditions to commit the crime."
One fellow teacher did testify against McMahon, after her son said he witnessed abuse in the classroom. The teacher -- who did not respond to a request for comment -- said her son "told her that when Mr. Mac was molesting the children, neither the Chinese assistant nor the French teacher was there," according to court documents.
Brian Elkin, who taught at the school during this period but has since left, said it was "always baffling to think that he was accused of some kind of molestation in the classroom, where he would have been in plain sight the whole time."
"There was no privacy in these classrooms, there was a wall of windows, and we had Chinese staff and hall monitors walking in and out," he said. "Even had he wanted to I don't think he could have done."
Saale, the former FBI agent and Foley Foundation advisor, said the idea that any abuser would have chosen the classroom as a place to molest children "struck me as highly unlikely and highly unusual that they would have been able to pull that off."
At trial, the court dismissed concerns about the size or visibility of the classroom, saying "there was time and space for the defendant to commit the crimes."
Speaking to French media at the time of McMahon's arrest, an unidentified parent of a victim described the experience as a "living nightmare" and said their child was deeply traumatized.
McMahon's lawyers argued that the accusations against him stemmed from Orjuela's molestation of the twin girls. Both twins testified against McMahon, and the specifics of the abuse they described are almost identical to that which Orjuela confessed to inflicting upon them. The abuse described by the other children -- molestation of the genitals and bottoms -- also lined up with that committed by Orjuela.
In its verdict, the court said it did not accept "the opinion of the defense that the victims might have confused other criminals with the defendant."
If, as McMahon's defense argued, Orjuela's crimes were transposed onto him amid what multiple interviewees said was an atmosphere of paranoia and distrust following the latter's arrest, there are also indications that a full, McMartin-style panic almost took hold at the school.
"A lot of the male teachers were afraid for their own jobs and safety," said the current member of staff at the Lycée Français.
One victim of this was Elkin, also an American who taught a class two grades above McMahon's. Elkin said that parents began to whisper "that I was in cahoots with him, it made it extremely uncomfortable at work."
He was eventually moved to teaching an older grade, but soon left the school because of the hostile environment.
"The parents were all talking about me behind my back, 'is he another one of them?' it was like being under a microscope," Elkin said. "There was a deep paranoia among the parents that there was some kind of ring, that he wasn't working alone."
But Elkin said "if there was going to be a witch hunt they're not going to find anything on me."
Elkin's ex-wife, Lesley Murray, also taught at the school during the time, and she said the accusations and the paranoia "really messed up" Elkin, prompting a breakdown that was "the beginning of the end of our marriage."
"It messed all of us up," she said. "But it was really hard for my husband because of the way he was treated."
Shanghai's Qingpu Prison is the main detention center for foreigners convicted of crimes in China.
Following a three day trial in the summer of 2014, the Shanghai court found McMahon guilty. An appeal later that year was unsuccessful.
McMahon was sentenced to 12 years in prison, to run until May 12, 2025. He is serving that sentence in Qingpu Prison, one of the main detention centers for foreigners in China.
Reference: CNN
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