OXNARD : Man Pleads Guilty to Beating Mother

An Oxnard man accused of beating his mother on the head with a ball peen hammer has pleaded guilty to a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, a district attorney’s office spokesman said Tuesday.

David Bell, 26, also confessed on Monday to felony charges that he stole his parents’ car after the attack and wrote bad checks, Assistant Dist. Atty. Charles Roberts said. He will be sentenced Oct. 28 in Ventura County Superior Court.

Bell faces a maximum penalty of four years in prison in the beating case and a one-year prison term for the other charges, Roberts said.

Oxnard police said Bell attacked his mother, Clarrissa Bell, on Sept. 12 as she was sitting in the living room of her Oxnard home. The two had argued about a television set that Bell pawned once, said Police Sgt. Denny Phillips.

When Bell’s mother refused to let him take it again, he argued with her and then struck her, Phillips said.

He fled with the TV in his mother’s car but was arrested the next day as he left an Oxnard residence, Phillips said.

After the attack, Clarrissa Bell called her husband, who took her to a hospital where she was treated for a concussion, Roberts said. She has since been released.

Bell’s plea came after prosecutors dropped an earlier charge of committing great bodily injury, which they said would not hold up in court, partly because the victim sustained no permanent injuries, Roberts said.

That charge could have added three years to Bell’s sentence, Roberts said.