Transient Pleads Not Guilty in Attack on NCIS Actress Pauley Perrette

A transient accused in an attack last month on “NCIS” actress Pauley Perrette near her Hollywood home pleaded not guilty today to charges of false imprisonment by violence and making a criminal threat.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Douglas Sortino ordered David Merck, 45, to return to court Jan. 19 for a pretrial hearing.

Merck, who remains in custody on $60,000 bail, was ordered earlier this month to stand trial on the two felony counts. If convicted as charged, he faces up to four years in prison.

At the defendant’s Dec. 2 preliminary hearing, Perrette identified Merck as the man who attacked her on a sidewalk around 5 p.m. Nov. 12.

Perrette -- who plays forensic scientist Abby Sciuto on the CBS series -- testified that her assailant grabbed her by the arm and told her repeatedly that he was going to kill her.

“He was so much stronger than me,” she said. “I couldn’t run. I couldn’t fight.”

The actress said that the man “kept repeating my name is William and I am going to kill you,” then hit her on the nose.

“I was praying my heart out,” she said, noting that she knew there was an empty garage behind her and that she was worried she would wind up dead if he got her inside it.

Perrette testified that she eventually spoke to the man, telling him that “William’s a very beautiful name” and that she had a nephew named William. She said he paused, then told her to get out of there.

Perrette described her “awful, life-changing” ordeal in a Twitter posting in which she said she was “grateful to be alive.”

“I almost died tonight,” she wrote. “I was walking across my street to a new guest house I bought to meet my architect. On my street, I was jumped by a very psychotic, homeless man.”

The actress described being “alone, terrified, trapped” and said she collapsed on the sidewalk and drew a sketch of her assailant after getting away from him. A male friend took a photo of the sketch she had drawn, tracked down her alleged assailant and followed him until police arrived, she said.

“I am shaken and traumatized,” she wrote. “My life changed tonight. We need full mental health care. We need housing and help for the homeless. We need to support our cops. We need to not walk alone. I need to heal.”

In a subsequent tweet Nov. 28, she wrote, “How am I doing? ... I’m O.K. Not great. Flashbacks, Nightmares. Trauma is a strange thing. Almost being killed, tough...”

City News Service