August 31, 2025
Prosecutors appealed the man’s original conviction of five years.
Following a successful appeal by prosecutors, a California man received a sentence of 27 years to life for making racist threats against a pregnant Black woman.
Initially, Tyson Mayfield took a plea deal in 2019 to receive a five-year sentence, as reported by ABC News. However, prosecutors at the Orange County District Attorney’s office found the 49-year-old’s deal too light given the severity and racist motive of his threats.
The prosecutors then sought to appeal his sentence, leading to Mayfield’s retrial with the new inclusion of a hate crime.
“Over the last six years, we have fought and fought and fought for justice in this case,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “Justice was finally served today against a man who spent decades hating others, and now he will spend decades behind bars where he belongs.”
Mayfield had threatened the expecting women at a bus stop in Fullerton, California, in 2018. The woman, who was eight months pregnant at the time, resorted to using pepper spray on the man while running away.
Mayfield has attacked innocent bystanders in racially-fueled incidents before. Also having a swastika tattoo, the man had a previous conviction for punching a man as he yelled racist slurs at him.
The judge over his initial trial granted him a lighter sentence due to no weapon used or injury caused toward the women. However, advocates and prosecutors found the five-year sentence unwarranted given his criminal history, prompting an appeal. In 2020, a three-judge panel called the sentence an “abuse of discretion,” paving the way for a retrial.
“By virtue of his prior offenses, respondent has shown he is fully willing and able to inflict great physical harm on his victims, and there is nothing to suggest he would not have done so again in this case,” the panel wrote, according to the Associated Press.
Now, the man will remain in prison for a much longer stint due to his actions.
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