Suspect in Stabbing Case Knifed at Court; Victim Held : Violence: Just before his trial is to start in Pasadena, the defendant is attacked in an elevator, allegedly by the man he is accused of knifing in a barroom brawl.

Just minutes before his trial was to start, a defendant accused of stabbing another man during a barroom brawl was knifed himself Wednesday--allegedly by his victim--as both men shared an elevator in the Pasadena Courthouse, authorities said.

Allie Braverman, 40, was hospitalized in stable condition with at least five serious puncture wounds in the back and torso following the bizarre 10:30 a.m. confrontation, which started after he stepped into an elevator to ride the six floors up to the courtroom.

The only other person on the elevator was Joseph Hernandez, according to authorities.

It was Hernandez whom Braverman had allegedly stabbed half a dozen times a year ago during a fight at a Rosemead bar, leading to Braverman’s arrest on charges of attempted murder. Opening statements in his trial had been set for Wednesday morning.

It was unclear how the two men wound up on the elevator together. “That’s the amazing thing here,” said one Pasadena police investigator who did not want to be identified, “and we still don’t have an answer to that one. We’re trying to find out.”

What is known is that Braverman, bleeding profusely, staggered out of the elevator on the courthouse’s top floor and into a courtroom--Department G--about 20 yards away. His dramatic entrance interrupted a hearing.

“He just walked in and stood there and said he had been knifed,” said William Surray, a defendant in another case who had been waiting in the courtroom. “When he first walked in, there was blood all over his shirt, and as he stood there, the blood kept dripping from everywhere.”

Meanwhile, a large crowd of sheriff’s deputies, Pasadena police and other law enforcement officers who happened to be in the sixth-floor lobby watched in amazement.

“The elevator door opens, and here you’ve got this crime scene,” said Pasadena Police Lt. Roger Kelley. “It sounds like some kind of retribution or something.”

Soon after Braverman lurched out of the elevator, Hernandez walked out, too, and was quickly taken into custody by officers and booked in county jail on suspicion of attempted murder, police said.

“He was blood-soaked,” the Kelley said of Hernandez.

A district attorney’s investigator reported having seen Hernandez emerge from the elevator carrying what appeared to be a six-inch kitchen boning knife and trying to hide it in an ashtray, Sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Rankin said.

“There was a 1 1/2-inch blade left, and they found two pieces of the blade in the elevator,” Rankin said.

The scene’s aftermath was witnessed by several jurors in the upcoming trial, as they arrived at court to see Braverman being wheeled out and noticed the bloodstains in the hallway.

As a result, Judge Charles Lee polled each of the jurors to determine whether they could still hear the case without prejudice. Convinced they could not, prosecutors quickly moved for a mistrial.

But defense attorney Thomas Nishi opposed the move, arguing that it would make it difficult to get witnesses for a future trial because they would feel intimidated by Hernandez. Lee is to rule on the mistrial motion today.

Ironically, Nishi said he had planned Wednesday to ask the judge to restrain Hernandez because of an alleged history of violence. The attorney claimed that Hernandez and some friends had beaten up people at the courtroom during an earlier preliminary hearing in the case because they mistakenly thought them to be Braverman’s friends.

The Pasadena courthouse--like all but the downtown Criminal Courts Building and the Compton site in the county system--does not have permanent metal detectors.

A court security commission in the summer of 1988, spurred by incidents such as the shooting that year of a Van Nuys bailiff by a disgruntled man, recommended that all the criminal courts get the $54,000 detectors, but that proposal has been slowed by staffing and funding problems, said John Steele, a court consultant on security. Wednesday’s stabbing could speed that process, and “add an urgency” to the issue, he said.