Man accused of hitting volunteer with rebar pleads not guilty

COSTA MESA — A Costa Mesa man plead not guilty Wednesday in Santa Ana on charges he attacked a volunteer at a soup kitchen with a metal pipe, hitting him in the face and sending him to the hospital.

Joseph Athelstan Patterson, 61, is charged with assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious bodily injury and misdemeanor criminal threats related to a confrontation at the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, 720 W. 19^th St., Costa Mesa, on Monday afternoon.

Patterson was being served food there about 1 p.m. when he got into an argument with a female volunteer, said police Sgt. Phil Myers.

A male volunteer stepped in, and Patterson walked out to his bicycle and grabbed a 2-foot piece of sharpened metal rebar — a steel, ribbed pole used to support concrete — and then attacked the male volunteer with it, Myers said.

The volunteer suffered a cut to his face and was hospitalized.

Patterson was arrested at the scene. He’s being held in lieu of $25,000 bail in Orange County Jail. His pretrial hearing is scheduled for Feb. 10 at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.

— Joseph Serna