MIAMI — A Miami lawyer couldn’t have sent a clearer message for the jury not to believe him, after his pants literally burst into flames during an arson trial.
Stephen Gutierrez had been defending 48-year-old Claudy Charles, who had been accused of setting his car on fire in South Miami-Dade, reports the Miami Herald. Witnesses say he was fiddling with something in his pocket right before presenting his closing argument, in which he claimed Charles’ car had spontaneously combusted.
As if right on cue, smoke began billowing out of the lawyer’s pants pocket, prompting him to run out of the courtroom.
Gutierrez claimed the fire in his pants was caused by his e-cigarette batteries, one of which may have been faulty. He says he ran to the bathroom and chucked the batteries into water before they could do any more damage.
When he got back to the courtroom, Gutierrez insisted that the incident wasn’t a staged demonstration. The jury didn’t seem inclined to believe him though, since they ended up convicting Charles of second-degree arson anyway.
