FULLERTON : Charges Denied in Assault With Bat

A 21-year-old Irvine man who police say admitted to them that he stalked a former classmate for seven years and then hit her over the head last year with a baseball bat pleaded not guilty Tuesday to assault charges.

Steven Schumacher is to undergo a preliminary hearing July 27 to determine whether he should stand trial in the attack on 22-year-old Catherine Cline, with whom he had shared several classes at Woodbridge High School in Irvine. Authorities said he was obsessed with Cline and kept detailed notes of her whereabouts, even though they had apparently never spoken in school.

Schumacher had been incarcerated under psychiatric care since last year, but a judge last week deemed him mentally fit to stand trial. He faces up to six years in prison if convicted of the June, 1989, attack in a parking lot outside Cline’s Placentia home.

Cline, who suffered some hearing loss from the attack, and her family worried that Schumacher’s attorney might seek to have the defendant’s bail lowered at Tuesday’s arraignment. But defense attorney Francis O’Rourke of Santa Ana said he would probably wait until next week’s hearing to do that. Schumacher remained in custody with bail set at $150,000.

O’Rourke, while declining to discuss his defense strategy in the case, said, “I really think the young man should be released on his own recognizance at this time because he’s competent.”

Dismissing Cline’s fears of a repeat attack, he said that Schumacher “doesn’t want to be near her if he can avoid it.”

The defense attorney added that his client needs treatment and it would be a waste were he to have to stand trial on the assault charge. for him to stand trial on the assault charge. He blamed media attention and public pressure for prompting the district attorney’s office to pursue the case.