The King County Prosecutor’s Office has postponed the Jan. 22 arraignment of the man accused of assaulting a comedian in Renton so that the suspect can undergo a mental health evaluation.

Steven Joseph Baldwin, 48, was charged with first-degree assault in the beating of Dylan Avila-Petitt, a local comedian, on Jan. 5 at the Local 907 pub.

A competency hearing is now scheduled for February 11 at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.

Baldwin remains in custody on $250,000 bail. The evaluation will take place in the King County Jail.

After undergoing brain surgery for two skull fractures and a split left ear, Avila-Petitt is expected to make a full recovery.

He was at his home in Des Moines earlier this week recovering with family.

“I’m doing pretty good, just trying to take it kind of day by day and take it easy,” Avila-Petitt said.

He still can’t drive because he suffers from vertigo and now he’s just trying to heal from a concussion he suffered as a result of the incident.

“I don’t have a lot of strength and stamina yet; there’s not a lot of endurance,” he said. “So, I’m just trying to build that back up.”

The comedian has been back on stage performing recently with Craig Gass and others at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle. It was a fun evening for Avila-Petitt, who was presented with a baseball helmut and other Mariners memorabilia from Rick Rizzs, the lead radio voice of the team.

“There was no fear of getting on stage,” said Avila-Petitt. “I was excited, anxious.”

Since the ordeal, he has been at home resting, in between jobs as a contract worker for Microsoft. He thinks Baldwin, his attacker, is a horrible comedian and had a few choice words to describe Baldwin’s swings at his head with a baseball bat.

Prior to the incident at the Local 907, Avila-Petitt had asked Baldwin not to perform his comedy skit with a Bible and a dildo again because he thought it was in bad taste. Police believe this was Baldwin’s motive for returning to the open mic night at the pub and assaulting Avila-Petitt.

He’s glad Baldwin is locked away and he said he doesn’t really have much of an opinion of Baldwin.

His wife on the other hand, Kalimar Avila-Petitt, did have some thoughts about the suspect. She thinks he was unstable and had no business on the street.

“I’m very disappointed that this individual was on the streets,” she said. “He had prior felonies and was mentally unstable. If there was better support, resources and systems in place this situation could have been avoided.”

Baldwin has previous counts of malicious mischief in the third degree as well as criminal convictions for conveying false information regarding explosives and threats against the President and reckless endangerment.

As for the comedian, Avila-Petitt still considers Renton home. He grew up in Skyway and attended Renton High School. He’s going to continue to host open mic night every Monday at 9:30 p.m. at the Local 907. He doesn’t know if there will be any long-term issues from his concussion, but he’s optimistic about the future.

“It’s in the past; I’m about moving forward and I can’t control what has happened,” Avila-Petitt said. “All I can control is where I’m going from here.”

He does plan to follow the trial closely and participate when needed.