Disfigured Model Vows She’ll Resume Her Career

A fashion model whose face was slashed with a razor blade in an attack allegedly arranged by her ex-landlord over $850 he owed her vowed today to resume her career despite receiving more than 100 stitches.

“The stitches on my face, I expected to look a lot worse,” Marla Hanson told WNBC-TV from her hospital bed. “Last night I wouldn’t even look in the mirror. But this morning I looked and I feel real good about (the surgery).

“In a few months, maybe I can do some modeling. Not a lot of close-up work--I’m going to concentrate on my TV career,” she said.

Hanson, a 24-year-old model with Petite Model Management, remained in St. Vincent’s Hospital in stable condition today after a plastic surgeon stitched her wounds.

Finished TV Commercial

The 5-foot-4 brunette, who moved here in August from Dallas and had just finished her first TV commercial, had done photo layouts for Mademoiselle and Glamour magazines for Petite Model Management.

“I’ve tried not to let my anger get the best of me,” the model said. “I feel really sorry for someone who has such a warped viewpoint of anything. I can’t imagine what he hoped to gain, but everything backfired.”

The attack occurred after Steven Roth, 28, left a bar with Hanson early Thursday.

Roth, who owned a cooperative apartment Hanson had shared with three other women, was supposed to return Hanson’s $850 security deposit while both were in the bar, where she had agreed to meet him because she felt safer with other people around.

Hanson moved out of Roth’s co-op about two weeks ago and had since been trying to get her deposit back.

Roth asked Hanson to step outside with him, and she agreed. As they walked, one of two men who approached them took out a single-edge razor blade and repeatedly slashed Hanson’s face.

Watched Attack

Roth watched the attack but did not help either Hanson or the assailants.

Asked if passers-by tried to help her, Hanson said: “The people on the street didn’t. Nobody helped. They just stared at me.”

Steven Bowman, 27, and Daren Norman, 20, both of Queens, were arrested as they fled by plainclothes police officers.

The two were charged with first-degree assault, possession of a weapon and resisting arrest.

Bowman implicated Roth in the attack and Roth was charged with assault.