Man Accused in Girl’s Slaying to Face Trial in Van Nuys

A Los Angeles judge returned the case of a man accused of killing an 8-year-old Woodland Hills girl to a Van Nuys court for trial on Wednesday after prosecutors and defense attorneys failed to reach a plea agreement.

Hooman Ashkan Panah, 22, of Woodland Hills would be eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted of the Nov. 20 slaying of Nicole Parker, whose nude body was discovered stuffed in a suitcase in Panah’s closet a day after she disappeared from her father’s apartment in the same Ventura Boulevard complex.

Panah has pleaded not guilty to seven charges, including murder, kidnaping and sodomy.

A grand jury also charged Panah with four special-circumstance allegations--murder in conjunction with kidnaping, sodomy, child molestation and oral copulation--each of which makes him eligible for the death penalty.

Superior Court Judge Lance Ito chose to transfer the case to Van Nuys during a hearing Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles, despite numerous objections by defense attorney Robert Sheahen that Panah could not receive a fair trial in the San Fernando Valley because of the widespread publicity given the killing.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter Berman disagreed.

“If the Menendez brothers can be tried anywhere in the county, this case can be too,” Berman said in an interview.

Sheahen has said he plans to use a psychological defense. “Hooman has a history of hospitalization for mental disorders,” Sheahen said earlier, citing records that show Panah received psychiatric treatment in 1988, six months after he left his native Iran.

Ito also ruled Wednesday that Sheahen and M. Syamak Shafi-Nia should continue to represent Panah as his court-appointed attorneys. Ito had temporarily assigned the attorneys to Panah’s case while they and Berman discussed the possibility of a plea agreement.

Berman said Ito also came to his decision after the two attorneys said they would be ready to go to trial by late summer, which would reduce the expense that further delays in the case may have produced.

Sheahen told Ito during the hearing that he was not eager to spend the next 12 months as defense counsel for Panah, but conceded that he is the best qualified because he has built a relationship of trust with Panah and knows the details of the case.

“I can provide the best defense that anyone can in this case,” Sheahen said later in an interview.

The mothers of Panah and Parker erupted almost simultaneously into tears Wednesday in Ito’s courtroom when Panah testified that he wanted both of his attorneys to continue to represent him.

Sheahen said he will file a motion at Wednesday’s hearing in Van Nuys to move the trial.