Arraignment in Acid Case Delayed Until Next Friday

Arraignment of a Whittier man accused of throwing acid in the face of a 4-year-old La Habra girl was postponed until next Friday to give the public defender time to select an attorney.

Mark Edward Hand, 26, appeared Thursday in the holding tank of Municipal Judge Daniel T. Brice’s courtroom and articulately answered the judge’s questions about his financial ability to hire his own lawyer.

After Hand told the judge his only income was a $536 monthly Social Security check, Brice appointed the public defender’s office to represent him.

Hand was arrested near his parents’ home in Whittier on Monday, the day after Rachel Ogawa was rushed to St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton with first- and second-degree burns on her face, chest, hands and legs.

Rachel and her mother, Elaine Ogawa, were just coming out of a restroom at Los Coyotes Regional Park in Buena Park when a man threw two cups of acetic acid on her.

Buena Park police Thursday night said they still do not have a motive for the attack.

Hand had been scheduled to begin psychiatric evaluation as a condition of his parole to California from Texas, where he had served time in prison for burglary.

His arraignment had been scheduled for Wednesday, but mental health officials at the Orange County Jail said he was “not fit for court” that day. Mental health officials at the jail have refused to say more. And Daniel Bates, the deputy public defender who was in court with Hand on Thursday, refused to elaborate.

Brice raised Hand’s bail from $25,000 to $100,000 at the request of Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Nunn, who told the court, “We consider him to be a danger to society.”

Brice banned television and newspaper cameras from the courtroom after Bates objected and Nunn agreed.

Bates said later that he opposes cameras anytime that eyewitness identification of a suspect could be an issue.