Studio City Man Pleads Innocent in Arson Fires : Crime: Jacob Mandel, 18, is charged with torching and vandalizing three hair salons. Barbers say he complained frequently about bad haircuts.

A Studio City teen-ager who Ventura Boulevard barbers said often complained about getting bad haircuts was charged Friday with torching and vandalizing three hair salons, including starting a fire that spread through an Encino mini-mall last week and caused $3.5 million in damage.

Jacob Mandel, 18, pleaded not guilty in Van Nuys Municipal Court to four counts of arson, one count of attempted arson and four counts of vandalism. The charges stem from incidents in the last two weeks at hair salons on Ventura Boulevard in Encino and Tarzana.

Mandel was arrested Tuesday night by firefighters who had been called to a blaze set at Sal’s Barber Shop in Tarzana. Firefighters spotted him trying to set a fire at Venti’s Elite Barber Shop across the street, authorities said.

Authorities said Mandel was also linked to the June 3 fire at the Capri East mini-mall in Encino, which destroyed or damaged 28 businesses and left dozens of people jobless. Fire investigators said the fire was started in the area of For Men Only, a salon near the rear of the U-shaped mall.

However, prosecutors and Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigators declined to say how the fires were set or what evidence tied Mandel to the crimes.

Barbers from all three salons said Mandel was a customer who often complained about haircuts and asked for unneeded trims. Mandel kept his hair closely cropped in a military-style haircut, the barbers said.

“He was obsessive about his hair,” said Brian Eger, a hairstylist who contracted for space in the For Men Only salon. “One time he came in twice in one day. Other times he would come in every other day. His hair was only an eighth of an inch long, but he’d want it cut.

“He would always complain that other people cut his hair bad or scarred his head. There was a couple times he had to be turned away because he had no hair left to cut.”

Eger said the shop’s owner, Ray Weaver, cut Mandel’s hair because other barbers refused. Weaver declined, through Eger, to discuss Mandel.

“Ray never had a hard time with him,” Eger said. “But I refused to cut his hair. He was too weird. I guess my sixth sense popped in.”

Mandel’s attorney, Miles R. Cooperman, said his client denies the allegations and said reports that the incidents may have been motivated by a bad haircut were “ridiculous.”

“It sounds preposterous,” Cooperman said. “I am unaware that there is any evidence linking him to the crime.”

He declined to discuss the case or his client any further.

Eger said he last saw Mandel in the shop the Saturday before the Wednesday fire. The teen-ager came in for a haircut but because Weaver had taken the day off he left without a trim.

According to sources, arson investigators were already suspicious of Mandel before his arrest Tuesday but were not watching him. Sal Carbone, owner of Sal’s, had given investigators Mandel’s name after his shop was hit twice by arson last week--including once on the night the Capri East burned down. After barbers from Sal’s moved across the street to Venti’s to continue business, they also saw Mandel drive down the alley behind the shop the day before that shop was vandalized, a barber told investigators.

On Tuesday, sources said, investigators told Weaver that the Capri East fire was started in his shop and asked if Mandel was also a customer there. Though Weaver did not know Mandel by name, he identified Mandel as a customer when investigators described him and his habit of complaining about haircuts.

Before the investigation of Mandel went further he was arrested that night at Venti’s.

Mandel was released on $60,000 bail Thursday night but was rearrested that night after prosecutors sought a bail increase to $250,000. He was being held Friday in the Van Nuys Jail.