Brandon Mayfield

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Brandon Mayfield (born July 15, 1966) is an American attorney-at-law with a practice in Washington County, Oregon best known for being erroneously linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings. On May 6, 2004, the FBI arrested Mayfield as a material witness in connection with the Madrid attacks and held him for over two weeks before releasing him. Mayfield was never charged, and an FBI internal review later acknowledged serious errors in their investigation.

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[edit] Background

Mayfield was born in Coos Bay, Oregon, but grew up in Halstead, Kansas. He served in the US Army Reserve from 1985 to 1989; he later served as an officer with the Army in Bitburg, Germany from 1992 to 1994. He met his wife Mona, an Egyptian national and the daughter of a college professor, on a blind date in 1987, and converted to Islam following his marriage to her shortly afterwards. While he was a regular worshiper at the Beaverton mosque, his colleagues were unaware of his religious beliefs. The imam of the mosque has described Mayfield as "very patriotic".

He studied law at Washburn University and Lewis and Clark College, receiving his law degree from Washburn in 1999, and practicing family law in Newport, before moving to the Portland area. Mayfield performed work for the Modest Means Program of the Oregon State Bar, which matches attorneys who are willing to work at reduced rates with low-income clients. In 2003 he offered legal aid to Jeffrey Leon Battle, one of the Portland Seven, a group of people that was convicted of trying to travel to Afghanistan to help the Taliban. Battle at the time was involved in a child custody case.

[edit] Arrest and detention

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mayfield was concerned for the safety of his children and wife, and according to his father, he suspected that he was under surveillance by the federal authorities. In the weeks before his arrest, Mayfield's family was under the impression that their house had been broken into twice, although nothing was stolen.

A bag containing detonating devices, found by Spanish authorities following the Madrid commuter train bombings, had fingerprints that were initially identified by the FBI as belonging to Mayfield ("100% verified"). The FBI arrested Mayfield at his offices in West Slope, an unincorporated suburb of Portland, Oregon, in a manner similar to the then-recent Mike Hawash case, under a material witness warrant rather than under charge, and held him with limited access to family and legal counsel. He was at first held at a Multnomah County jail under a false name; he was later transferred to an unidentified location. His family protested that Mayfield had no connection with the bombings, nor has been to Spain in over 11 years.

[edit] Release

Following his arrest, Spanish authorities relayed their increasing doubts that the fingerprint on the bag was actually his to the FBI, though these concerns were not communicated to Mayfield's attorneys. On May 21 the Spanish authorities at last announced that the fingerprints actually belonged to an Algerian national, Ouhnane Daoud; within two hours, Mayfield was released from custody and returned home, although a gag order remained in force for the next few days. By May 25, the case was dismissed by the judge, who ordered the return of seized evidence and unsealing of documents pertaining to his arrest.

The FBI conducted an internal review of Mayfield's arrest and detention, concluding that although he was not arrested solely due to his religious beliefs, they may have contributed to investigator's failure to take into account the Spanish concerns over fingerprint identification.[1] The FBI issued a press release announcing the report's conclusion that they had not misused the Patriot Act in the investigation.[2] Civil libertarians and the ACLU nonetheless consider Mayfield's detention a misuse of the material witness statute.[3]

Although the FBI afterwards apologized for their acts, Mayfield has filed several lawsuits over this invasion of his privacy. One sought to force the government to return or destroy copies of items seized from his home. Another, which was argued before U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken July 15, 2005, challenged the law which was used against him as unconstitutional. The Federal Government filed several motions to have Mayfield's case dismissed as a matter of national security, or national secrets, but these were denied by Judge Aiken.

The case is currently in the docket of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Among the issues on appeal, are whether materials removed from Mayfield's house, including DNA samples taken from his family's personal toothbrushes, are to be destroyed or preserved. The Federal Government has assumed the position that materials must be preserved so that they can be referred to, if more lawsuits are brought in the future.

On November 29, 2006, the U.S. government settled part of the lawsuit with Mayfield for a reported 2 million dollars. The United States government issued a formal apology to Mayfield as part of the settlement. The settlement allows Mayfield to pursue a legal challenge against the Patriot Act.[4] The FBI was also cleared of wrongdoing in an earlier internal investigation.

[edit] External links

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ USDOJ Report
  2. ^ Fingerprint misidentification of Brandon Mayfield - Federal Bureau of Investigation
  3. ^ Administration Abuses Material Witness Law - TalkLeft.com
  4. ^ Wrongly accused man settles bomb suit - news.yahoo.com
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