Exiled sex offender worked at Brock U
Malcolm Matthews, AKA Malcolm Watson, convicted of sexually assaulting a teen in 2006
St. Catharines man and former English teacher exiled from the United States in 2006 for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old student was working as a teaching assistant at Brock University under an assumed name in 2017, The Standard has learned.
Malcolm Matthews — convicted as Malcolm Watson in Cheektowaga, N.Y., of sexual assault in the third degree — also got a job at the YWCA Niagara Region in fund development and communications in 2012.
His employment, which potentially gave him access to vulnerable girls, was terminated after three weeks when the YWCA learned of his status as a registered sex offender in the United States.
More recently, Matthews was a PhD student at Brock in the interdisciplinary humanities department until the fall of 2017. The university confirmed Friday he was employed as a teaching assistant, a position that sees a person teaching classes and grading student work.
A Brock spokesperson said Matthews, 48, is no longer employed at the university, although he could not provide further details, citing privacy rules.
In 2006 Matthews, still going by Watson, was an English teacher at Buffalo Seminary, an all-girls private school. Although an American citizen, he lived in St. Catharines with his now-former wife and their children.
At the school, he was involved in a relationship with a 15-yearold student. According to the
Erie County district attorney, Matthews was warned by the seminary to stop seeing the student outside of school hours but was caught with her in a car at a shopping mall parking lot.
He was accused of kissing the girl and touching her breasts. He pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the third degree and endangering the welfare of a minor.
Matthews surrendered a DNA sample and was registered as a level one sexual offender — the lowest ranking of sex offenders in the state.
The judge in the case gave Matthews the option of serving time in prison or three years probation in Canada, triggering an international controversy.
While the judge gave Matthews the option of exile, the Ontario and Canadian governments did not want him in the country and in late 2006, the former school teacher faced deportation back to the U.S. Ultimately, he was permitted to stay in Canada.
In 2011, he changed his last name from Watson to his exwife’s maiden name of Matthews. Not long after, he was hired by the YWCA.
“It was a very short time, but a difficult time for us,” said YWCA executive director Elisabeth Zimmermann.
Zimmermann said the YWCA did a background check but found nothing on Malcolm Matthews, the only male employee ever hired by the YWCA. She said an anonymous tip lead them to Malcolm Watson, and his employment was terminated.
By 2017, Matthews was a graduate student at Brock where, according to his online university profile, he wrote papers about autism and “masculinity in crisis.”
“My research explores sexuality on the autism spectrum as it relates to Western man’s simultaneous hope for a unifying technohuman singularity and his anxiety over his possible obsolescence in a posthuman, post-anthropocentric world,” he wrote on the profile.
According to the website, Matthews was scheduled to defend his PhD thesis in October 2017.
The Standard learned that Matthews was a teaching assistant from a person who recognized him as Malcolm Watson. Students in classes he taught were unaware of his criminal past.
The university does some background checks on teaching assistants, but typically only those who may have access to vulnerable persons.
Although the university would not discuss the specifics of Matthews’ case, in a statement a spokesperson said: “the safety and wellbeing of students is Brock’s utmost priority.” Under the student code of conduct, if a student faces criminal charges or that student’s presence could impact the safety of others, the university “is authorized to impose measures appropriate to the circumstances, including suspension or expulsion.”
There appears to be no record of a Malcolm Matthews graduating from Brock.
Matthews did not respond to interview requests from The Standard.