Reed Saxon/AP

A Pinkberry store is seen in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles.

Pinkberry co-founder Young Lee, accused in the June tire iron beating of a homeless man near a 101 Freeway off-ramp, pleaded not guilty to felony assault in a Los Angeles courtroom on Monday.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Upinder Kalra granted Lee, who remains free on $60,000 bail, a one-time dispensation allowing him to travel to South Korea, reports the L.A. Times. Lee agreed to automatic extradition should he fail to make his next court date on March 5.

Lee has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon in connection with a summer 2011 attack on a transient, allegedly over a sexually explicit tattoo that may have been viewed as disrespectful, according to authorities.

Los Angeles police say words were exchanged between the man seeking money and Lee in a rented Range Rover.

Notes the L.A. Times:

Lee demanded that the man kneel and apologize, and the man consented, officials said. But Lee attacked him anyway, chasing him down, kicking him and "beating him down" with a tire iron, LAPD officials said.

The suspect's attorney told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month the transient "made explicit threats as if he had a weapon, which he may have had."

Authorities received 911 witness reports including Lee's license plate number. The tire iron was recovered via the rental car agency.

AP

Anaheim Police Department photo of Itzcoatl Ocampo. The former Marine is accused of killing four homeless men in Orange County.

Itzcoatl Ocampo, the 23-year-old former Marine accused in the brutal serial killing of four homeless men in Orange County, appeared in a cell on Tuesday at a Santa Ana arraignment that lasted less than five minutes before being postponed.

Ocampo's lawyer asked for a continuance, saying he was given only 15 seconds to speak with his client through a food slot, and did not have enough information to enter a plea. Jail officials also had not conducted a psychological evaluation on Ocampo, reports KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez.

"He was curled up in a ball under a blanket in underwear, no shirt, no pants," Longwith said. "He looked like a wet cat — a scared, wet cat. It wasn't much conversation," said Ocampo's lawyer of his brief visit on Tuesday, reports the L.A. Times.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Ruckauckas called Ocampo a "thrill kill" case — a person who kills "to see what it’s like to make those kills and he gets a thrill out of it." He expects Ocampo to plead insanity.

The arraignment will take place Feb. 17.