May 25, 2004
DOCUMENT: Crime

FBI Admits Fingering Wrong Man

Bungled bureau analysis landed Oregon lawyer in federal stir

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FBI Admits Fingering Wrong Man

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MAY 26--The FBI apologized yesterday to the Oregon lawyer arrested and jailed in connection with the March 11 Madrid bombings, saying that the agency's identification of a key smudged fingerprint supposedly linking Brandon Mayfield to the Spanish plot was faulty. The lawyer, 37, was arrested as a material witness after the FBI detailed its case against Mayfield in a confidential affidavit submitted to a federal judge. Following Mayfield's release Monday, Judge Robert Jones ordered the release of the bureau affidavit, a copy of which you'll find below. The document shows that, as early as mid-April, Spanish investigators questioned whether the fingerprint found on a bag of detonators was actually Mayfield's. Despite those reservations, FBI agents deposited Mayfield in a federal lockup on May 6, holding him there for nearly three weeks. In addition to the botched fingerprint analysis, other "probable cause" cited in the FBI document included Mayfield's handling of a child custody case involving a defendant in the Portland Seven terrorism case and several trips made by the lawyer--a convert to Islam--to a Beaverton mosque. File this FBI masterpiece next to the infamous Richard Jewell affidavit. (9 pages)

FBI Admits Fingering Wrong Man
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