Brandon Mayfield settles for $2 million for FBI mistake

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/29/america/NA_GEN_US_Madrid_Bombings_FBI.php
 

PORTLAND, Oregon: An attorney wrongly arrested by FBI agents after the 2004 Madrid terrorist bombings, has settled his 
lawsuit against the U.S. government for $2 million (€1.5 million), his lawyer said Wednesday.

The lawsuit claimed that Brandon Mayfield was wrongly arrested on the basis of misidentified fingerprints. Mayfield, a 
convert to Islam, said he was arrested because of his faith. He was held for two weeks in 2004.

FBI experts mistakenly matched a fingerprint found on a bag of detonators in Madrid to Mayfield's after the March 11, 
2004 train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500.

Mayfield was jailed on a material witness warrant but was released after the FBI acknowledged the fingerprint were not 
his.

The government admitted in the settlement that it "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 ofice," according 
to a statement released by Mayfield's attorney, Elden Rosenthal.

As part of the settlement, the government once again apologized to the Mayfield family, Rosenthal said.

...

 

 
 

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