Feds Agree to Pay Oregon Man $2 Million for Wrongly Arresting Him

Brandon Mayfield of Portland, Oregon, was stunned in May 2004 when federal agents came to his house and arrested him for being connected to the train bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. Mayfield and his family protested the arrest and claimed that he had been arrested because of being a Muslim. But the FBI said that he had been arrested as a material witness because his fingerprint had been found on a bag of detonators in Madrid.

However, two weeks after his arrest the FBI discovered that the fingerprint had been misidentified and was not Mayfield’s print after all. Mayfield was released, but he and his wife, Mona, continued to maintain that he had been arrested because of his Muslim faith. "We are Muslims," Mona Mayfield said. "We are American. We are patriotic. We are unhappy with the current administration stripping away our rights."

The local FBI office disagreed that Mayfield’s religion had anything to do with his arrest, because they did not know he was a Muslim until after the fingerprint was identified as his. "If a similar investigation was being conducted, and we were provided a fingerprint identification, we would do exactly what we did in the case of Mr. Mayfield," said FBI agent Robert Jordan. "Of course we regret what happened to Mr. Mayfield, but again, we are proud of what we did here."

Two internal Justice Department investigations cleared the FBI and local prosecutors of any wrongdoing in Mayfield’s arrest. In December 2005, the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility determined that federal agents handling the investigation acted appropriately on the basis of information they believed to be factual. Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine concluded a month later that Mayfield’s Muslim faith had nothing to do with the FBI initiating an investigation against him, and that the provisions of the USA Patriot Act were not misused in Mayfield’s arrest.

Mayfield’s lawsuit against the federal government ended Wednesday when the government agreed to pay him $2 million to settle the suit. According to Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos, the government did not admit liability or fault, but did issue a formal apology to Mayfield as part of the settlement. Scolinos said that the FBI has adopted suggestions for improving its fingerprint identification process in the future "to ensure that what happened to Mr. Mayfield does not happen again."

A news release from Mayfield’s attorney, Elden Rosenthal, said that the government acknowledged in the settlement that it had "performed covert physical searches of the Mayfield home and law office, and it also conducted electronic surveillance targeting Mr. Mayfield at both his home and law office." After the settlement was announced, Mayfield was relieved but still angry. "The pain and torture and humiliation that this (case) has caused my family is hard to put into words," he Mayfield said.

Rosenthal also said that the terms of the settlement will allow Mayfield to continue pursuing his goal of abolishing the USA Patriot Act. Mayfield believes the act violates the Fourth Amendment because it allows government searches without agents having to establish probable cause that a crime has been committed. "I look forward to the day the Patriot Act is declared unconstitutional, and all citizens are safe from unwarranted arrest and searches by the federal government," Mayfield said in a statement.