A 42-year-old transient previously convicted of a hate crime has been charged with committing another hate crime against a woman in Fullerton.
Tyson Theodore Mayfield was charged Wednesday with one count each of criminal threats, a civil rights violation, both felonies, as well as one misdemeanor count of petty theft. He also faces a sentencing enhancement for a hate crime with a prior conviction.
The crimes are alleged to have happened Monday afternoon at the Fullerton bus station at 120 E. Santa Fe Ave. when a pregnant black woman was exiting a bus and the defendant, who is white, insulted her with racial slurs and threatened her, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
The woman pepper sprayed him in self-defense, and Mayfield allegedly grabbed her backpack and fled, prosecutors said.
The woman called police, but they were unable to find him. A short time later, the defendant again approached the victim, who ran away from him into a nearby cafe, prosecutors said. She again called police who arrested him after he took a short bus ride away from the station, prosecutors said.
Mayfield pleaded not guilty Wednesday and was ordered to return to court Sept. 27 for a pretrial hearing.
Mayfield pleaded guilty in October of last year to a hate crime, also based on a victim’s race, according to court records. He was sentenced to a year in jail and was given credit for 194 days in custody by Orange County Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino, who offered the plea deal, according to court records.
Mayfield was arrested July 13 on a charge of defecating in public in Fullerton on July 3 and is awaiting trial on that case, according to court records.
Mayfield pleaded guilty in June 2008 to a felony count of mayhem and was sentenced to four years in prison. He pleaded guilty to a felony count of assault with a deadly weapon in February 2005 and was sentenced to two years in prison.