WAILUKU — A man arrested after allegedly biting a woman’s forearm while stealing her purse last week could face a mandatory prison term as a repeat offender, based on two prior convictions for assaulting the same victim, a deputy prosecutor said.

Abraham Kamaka, 25, is being held in lieu of $57,000 bail after a judge ruled Wednesday there was sufficient evidence to support probable cause for charges including first-degree burglary and second-degree robbery.

During a preliminary hearing for Kamaka on Wednesday in Wailuku District Court, Aisha Patterson testified Kamaka had been sleeping in her car parked outside her Wailuku condominium unit before he came to the door at about 10 a.m. March 2.

She said she went outside to talk to Kamaka, who asked for his birthday money.

“I told him, ‘No, because I know what you’re going to use it for,’ ” she said. “I told him no and he kept asking, saying he wanted to go buy clothes and a backpack.”

When she told him they could go shopping later, “he got mad because he wanted the money now,” she said.

Through the partially open door to the home, Kamaka could see her purse by the couch, Patterson said. She walked toward the purse to grab it, and “he barged in,” she said.

She testified they fought over the purse, and he grabbed her $800 cellphone from her hand. Kamaka pushed her onto the couch and walked outside, Patterson said.

She followed him outside.

“We were fighting over the purse ’cause I was trying to grab my purse and my phone,” Patterson said. “That’s when he bit me.”

She said Kamaka took her keys from her purse and got into her 2015 white Nissan Versa, locking the doors.

“I was begging, yelling, asking him to open up the door,” she said. “But he just drove off.”

The next morning, she was with her father as he drove on Market Street toward Happy Valley when they saw Kamaka sitting near Kings BBQ & Chinese Restaurant.

Herbert Patterson said he stopped and approached Kamaka, who got up and began to walking away. Patterson said he asked about his daughter’s car and Kamaka gestured toward a parking lot across from the State Building.

Kamaka gave Patterson the keys to the car.

Police arrived to arrest Kamaka.

Aisha Patterson said she got back her phone, but not the $70 that was in her wallet.

Under cross-examination by Deputy Public Defender Ben Lowenthal, Patterson said she had allowed Kamaka to sleep in her car, but he wasn’t allowed to drive it that day.

“Ever since I found out he was going back on drugs, I haven’t been letting him drive it as much,” she said.

In addition to burglary and robbery, Kamaka is charged with two counts of second-degree theft, unauthorized control of a propelled vehicle, abuse and third-degree assault.

While Kamaka sought a reduction in bail, Deputy Prosecutor Lewis Littlepage argued that bail should be maintained.

“He is a danger to the victim,” Littlepage said.

He said Kamaka has two prior convictions for second-degree assault against the same victim.

Judge Kirstin Hamman kept bail at $57,000. “The court is concerned about the dangerousness,” she said.

Kamaka is set to be arraigned March 20 in 2nd Circuit Court.