Man gets four years for pipe assault

COSTA MESA — A man has been sentenced to four years in prison for attacking a Costa Mesa soup kitchen volunteer with a metal pipe.

Joseph Athelstan Patterson, 62, was sentenced Tuesday at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana for assaulting a man at Someone Cares Soup Kitchen on 19^th Street on Jan. 31.

In July, Patterson was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily injury. He was given a sentencing enhancement for inflicting great bodily harm and using a dangerous or deadly weapon, according to court records.

Patterson was found not guilty of a third felony charge of mayhem.

Patterson was being served lunch at the soup kitchen when he got into a confrontation with a female worker. When a man tried to step between the two, Patterson went out to his bicycle, grabbed a 2-foot piece of sharpened metal rebar and attacked the male volunteer with it.

—Lauren Williams