SEATTLE — For the last three and-a-half years, Scott McMahon has been sitting in a squalid, crowded prison cell in the Philippines, with no opportunity for bail, no opportunity to speak, wondering if the truth would ever set him free.
The former Seattle man has advocates in the Philippines, ready to testify to his innocence. He has a legal team from the California Innocence Project, calling his charges baseless, and he has a mother in Seattle, who has quietly worked on his behalf, hoping the US State Department would negotiate his release.
None of those things have budged the stubborn Philippine court system, which has charged McMahon with rape. McMahon’s mother, Shelley Campanella told KIRO 7 the charges are absolutely false, and US legal advocates, having examined the charges, agree with her.
Campanella decided to break her silence about the case Tuesday, and talk to KIRO 7’s Gary Horcher.
"To sit in jail for a crime that you did not commit, because somebody has a grudge against you, it’s outrageous,” she said.
Campanella says for the last three and a half years, she agreed not to go public about her son's imprisonment in the Philippines--because she was hoping the US Government would help to free him. She says officials repeatedly dismissed her requests, and they refused to help her.
Originally from Seattle, Scott McMahon had a family with two children in the Philippines, where he’d built a successful construction company. In 2010, McMahon pressed charges against a neighbor, accusing her of abusing his kids. Campanella says the woman he accused--in turn, accused him of rape.
Even though eyewitnesses place McMahon miles away from the alleged rape scene with his family, he was arrested, and has been jailed since.
Campanella says the accuser demanded cash to drop the charges.
“It's really a crime of extortion, corruption,” she said. “That's really what this is."
Lawyers with the California Innocence Project have taken-on McMahon's case. They say he's being framed by false accusations in a court system which has denied him bail--intent on taking him to trial.
"And if they choose to believe (his accuser) then my son will serve a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit."
Campanella says her son is in prison conditions so filthy, inmates have died around him. “There are more than a hundred grown men packed into an 800 square-foot prison,” she said. People are dying in there of things we’re vaccinated for.”
Now, by launching websites and social media with details on his case--she's hoping to get the attention of officials here--and the Philippines.
“I’m hoping that it does get the attention of the American Government,” she said. “I'm hoping they take a look at this and say “Oh my gosh, how did this happen, what could we have done, what can we do now?"”
These pages have been launched by legal advocates, with details and documentation of the case.
McMahon is scheduled to go on trial October 24th. Campanella says she wants everyone to know the risks of being falsely accused overseas. "You think that this could never happen to you but it can and this could be your son, it could be your daughter, it could be you!"
KIRO
