Background
Mayfield was born in Coos Bay, Oregon and grew up in Halstead, Kansas. He served in the United States Army Reserve from 1985 to 1989, and then as an officer in 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 Olympia, Washington in 1986, and converted to Islam shortly afterwards. They have lived in Beaverton, Oregon off and on since 1989. Although he was a regular worshiper at a Beaverton mosque prior to his arrest, his colleagues were unaware of his religious beliefs. The imam of the mosque has described Mayfield as "very patriotic". Mayfield has four children.
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 for low-income clients. In 2003 he offered legal aid to Jeffrey Leon Battle, one of the Portland Seven, a group of people convicted of trying to travel to Afghanistan to help the Taliban. Battle at the time was involved in a child custody case.
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