Metroxpress reports that Malthe Thomsen, 24, the Danish educator who is suing New York for 48 million kroner after being falsely accused and then jailed on charges of paedophilia, is now back in Manhattan for the trial.

The first hearing was held on Monday afternoon.

Thomsen, who was accused of molesting 13 children during his internship at a New York City kindergarten two years ago, spent time at Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex, before all the charges were dismissed under further review in November 2014.

High compensation
His lawyer, Jane Fisher-Byrialsen, told TV2 that compensation in such cases tends to be reasonably high.

“You get a very reasonable compensation for being [falsely] called a paedophile publicly  – just over a million dollars and often 3-5 million dollars.”

Not about the money
For Thomsen, the issue isn’t so much about the money as it is about bringing about changes to the criminal justice system in the United States – one that he maintains tried to pressure him into confessing to a crime he never committed

“This will do a lot of good: especially for the less fortunate in New York,” he told DR.

“There are many who do not have the resources I was lucky to have.”