Arraignments

City officials accepted a $100,000 state grant this week that will pay for an innovative video system designed to make arraignments of criminal suspects vastly more efficient. Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) presented Mayor Daniel H. Young with a check for the program at the City Council meeting Monday. The video system will be incorporated into the 48-cell detention center near City Hall, which is expected to be open in December.

A 39-year-old man will be arraigned next week on charges of beating his wife for days, raping her and choking her until she lost consciousness, officials said Tuesday. The husband faces charges of attempted murder, torture, spousal rape and kidnapping. Arraignment has been set for April 29. The husband, whose name is being withheld by The Times because it would identify an alleged rape victim, held his wife captive and beat her for five days at their home, police said.

The arraignment of six former and current members of the city employees pension board has been postponed until June 20 to give defense attorneys time to prepare. The six, who are under order to appear in court, are to be charged with felony conflict of interest. They are suspected of voting to raise their own benefits substantially while endorsing a risky plan that has left the city with a $2-billion deficit.

Arraignment for the suspect charged with the arson of a Thousand Oaks comic-book store was postponed Wednesday because he is getting a new attorney. Christopher Nagano, 20, will be arraigned Tuesday in Ventura County Municipal Court. He is in the process of hiring attorney Louis B. Samonsky, who said he would seek a reduction in Nagano's $500,000 bail at the arraignment hearing. The Heroes and Legends comic-book store was gutted by fire on Sept. 18.

A July 19 preliminary hearing has been set for a 72-year-old man accused of trying to rob a Bank of America in La Crescenta while wearing a fake beard and mustache, officials said. Antonio Estrada of Los Angeles faces four counts of attempted second-degree robbery, second-degree burglary, having a concealed weapon in a vehicle and carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle, court officials said. Estrada was arraigned at Glendale Municipal Court and pleaded not guilty.

Arraignment for Dennis Rodman on three misdemeanor counts of disturbing the peace has been postponed until July 24. Attorney Paul Meyer said he and Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Fell agreed to postpone the case "so that discovery of evidence can occur and motions can be evaluated." On May 31, Rodman was charged with disturbing the peace with loud and raucous noise on a public beach. If convicted, he faces up to 18 months in jail and a $3,000 fine.

A third man accused in the death of a 12-year-old Hesperia boy shot in December on Interstate 15 is expected to be arraigned today after being extradited from Arizona, authorities said. Prosecutors believe that Saul Juarez, 19, was one of several men involved in the shooting of Gabriel Garcia as he rode in a friend's car.

A 64-year-old man who told police he robbed banks throughout the South Bay to pay his wife's medical bills was arraigned Friday. Abraham Irving Block of Manhattan Beach was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on one count of unarmed bank robbery a day after police arrested him in Redondo Beach. He was released on $25,000 bail raised with the help of relatives. Block did not enter a plea at the arraignment. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Jan. 3.

Four defendants in the brutal slaying of Foothill High honor student Stuart A. Tay had their arraignment postponed in Orange County Superior Court Friday morning. By waiving their right to a speedy trial, the young men--indicted Monday by the Orange County Grand Jury on charges of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait--put off entering pleas until March 29.

A 17-year-old youth was arraigned Thursday on suspicion of raping an 11-year-old girl in front of her teen-age sister in a North Hills alley, and is under investigation in another rape that occurred nearby a few hours later. Police said the 11-year-old girl and her 17-year-old sister were on their way home about 10:15 p.m. Monday after eating dinner at a restaurant when a gunman accosted them on Roscoe Boulevard.