DA charges 20-year-old in Habit Burger attack where manager lost eye
Isaac White-Carter
MARTINEZ, Calif. - The Contra Costa County District Attorney has filed charges against a 20-year-old Hayward man following an attack at a Habit Burger restaurant, where an assistant lost her eye while protecting a teenage boy with autism.
Isaac White-Carter will be arraigned on Thursday on three counts of mayhem, assault likely to produce great bodily injury and making a criminal threat.
He did not have an attorney on record as of Wednesday afternoon.
Prosecutors and police say that White-Carter attacked 19-year-old Bianca Palomera at the burger joint in Antioch on Nov. 12.
Palomera was trying to protect a relative of another co-worker from being bullied by White-Carter. The teenage boy had autism, and Palomera told White-Carter to leave.
While she was trying to defuse the situation, White-Carter punched Palomera several times in the face, prosecutors said. There is video of the attack.
The force of the blows caused an irreparable injury to her eye, prosecutors said.
Restaurant manager who lost eye speaks after alleged attacker arrested
Speaking to KTVU after Antioch police arrested a suspect in an attack that cost her, her right eye, a 19-year-old restaurant manager says of the brutal attack, "It completely derailed my life." She plans on pursuing a medical degree.
Palomera told KTVU earlier this week that doctors will put in a prosthetic eye once the wound heals, but that she suffers from headaches.
Palomera also said she doesn't regret defending the boy, despite losing an eye.
In fact, she said she plans on going back to school to pursue a medical career.
"It completely derailed my life. There are a lot of struggles, but I have to move around them," she said in a prior interview.
Members of the United States Marshals Service arrested White-Carter in Hayward on Monday and turned him over to Antioch authorities -- who booked him into the Martinez Detention Facility.
His bail was set at $215,000.
If convicted on all counts, White-Carter could face a maximum sentence of almost 11 years in state prison.