Suspect in Black Pastor’s Killing Hurt in Lockup Attack

A white Northridge college student, jailed in the slaying of a black Pacoima pastor, suffered a broken nose when he was kicked in the face by a black prisoner in what the student’s lawyer described Wednesday as a racial attack.

Sheriffs officials said, however, that it was unclear that race was a motive.

The attack on Philip J. Dimenno, 19, occurred Tuesday in an inmate lockup area in the San Fernando Courthouse about 15 minutes after the conclusion of his preliminary hearing on a murder charge, officials said.

Another student--Dana L. Singer, 18, the alleged triggerman in the July 28 killing--was also kicked by the same prisoner and received bruises on his arm but was not hospitalized, said Sgt. Marguerite Waddy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Dimenno’s attorney, Harold Greenberg, said his client has received threatening letters with racial overtones, including one that said black inmates “would get him wherever he goes in the prison system.”

Singer and Dimenno have been ordered to stand trial in the killing of Carl White, 54, pastor of the Apostolic Temple Church in Pacoima. Singer allegedy shot White in the pastor’s Chatsworth house after the two young men asked the minister not to report a minor traffic collision the night before.

Black ministers and activists were outraged when the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office initially recommended an unusually low bail of $20,000 each for Dimenno and Singer.

The protesters accused the district attorney’s office of racism, saying that black suspects would not have been given such low bail in the killing of a white victim. The bail was revoked the next day and prosecutors agreed to recommend denial of bail in future murder cases unless approval is obtained from senior officials of the district attorney’s office.

On Tuesday, Dimenno and Singer were sitting on a bench waiting to return to jail when inmate Thaddeus K. Bonner, 36, walked up and kicked them, sheriff’s and court officials said.

Bonner said nothing before the attack, officials said, and there was no evidence that the students had said anything to provoke Bonner, who was being returned to jail on an auto theft and other charges.