A mentally ill man who thought he was Hitler and said he wanted to do harm to Chinese and Jewish people -- and lit a stranger's coat on fire -- was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years of supervision by state psychiatric authorities.

The sentence means Dung Dinh Phan, 42, will head to the Oregon state mental hospital for treatment, and he later could be released back into the community to serve the remainder of his 20 years. Even out in the community, he will be supervised by the state Psychiatric Security Review Board, which is responsible for making sure mental health workers regularly visit with him and check to see that he's taking his medication.

Investigators say that on Jan. 9, 2016, Phan walked up to the woman as she stood next to food carts in downtown Portland at Southwest Sixth Avenue and Washington Street. The woman -- Joosun Park, 37 -- was visiting Portland from South Korea, and investigators say Phan apparently thought she was Chinese.

Investigators say Phan set some newspapers on fire and threw them on the woman's back. The woman felt the heat of the 2-foot-tall flames, jumped to the side and watched the newspapers fall to the ground. The flames burned a hole through her down jacket.

Witnesses said that while this was happening, Phan sat on a bench and stared at the woman. Phan later told a Portland police officer and a downtown security guard that he struggles with paranoid schizophrenia and is "the next Hitler." He also told jailers that he thought he was Hitler.

Defense attorney DeAnna Horne on Wednesday said Phan was "deeply embarrassed" about his delusions and what he had done --- especially because he emigrated from Vietnam with part of his immediate family to escape the communist regime. Horne said her client's mental illness became apparent decades ago.

Court records show he was twice arrested for first-degree arson in the 1990s. Details of those crimes weren't available, but he was found guilty or guilty except for insanity in both cases. He was sentenced to 20 years under the supervision of state psychiatric officials, which means he spent some time at the state mental hospital but later lived out in the community. For reasons that are unclear, psychiatric officials stopped supervising him 17 years into his sentence.

"There was a safety net under him for a period of time," Horne said. "When that safety net disappeared, things did not go well for him."

Phan apologized Wednesday for trying to burn the woman at the food carts but said he didn't take his medications in the days leading up to the incident because workers at the medical clinic he went to twice told him they were out. He also said he forgot.

"I was so sick, I didn't ... take medication for a week," Phan told Multnomah County Circuit Judge Henry Kantor. "Even if i don't take medication for one day or two days, I will get sick. I know myself."

Phan said that while taking his medications over the years, he had held down jobs long term as a janitor and a restaurant cook. He said he didn't intend to hurt the woman at the food carts.

"I'm not that kind of person," Phan said.

The judge raised concern that Phan had been living on his own, with no one checking in on him.

"No one from either the Review Board or any other agency made an effort to try to find you and make sure that you had your medication?" Kantor asked.

"Yeah," responded Phan.

"Do you think that might have helped, if someone had reached out to you?" the judge continued.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Phan said.

Wednesday's hearing began with Phan agreeing to the facts as alleged by police and prosecutors in their reports. The judge then found Phan guilty except for insanity of all of the charges against him: first-degree arson, attempted first-degree assault, second-degree intimidation and reckless endangerment of another person.

The judge said he thinks Phan will need supervision for the rest of his life, but the law only allows him to sentence Phan to 20 years of monitoring.

-- Aimee Green

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