Miami Lawyer's Pants Catch Fire While Arguing an Arson Case
Source Firehouse.com News
The pants of a Miami defense lawyer caught fire in front of a jury as he began his closing arguments, ironically, in an arson case.
According to the Miami Herald the lawyer was arguing that his client’s car spontaneously combusted and was not intentionally set as his client has been charged. The lawyer, Stephen Gutierrez, had been fiddling in his pocket just before addressing the jurors when smoke began billowing out of his right pocket, the Miami Herald reported.
He ran out of the courtroom and later returned unharmed, but with a singed pocket, swearing to the jurors the incident was not a stunt or a staged defense gone horribly wrong, the paper reported.
He blamed a faulty battery in an e-cigarette, the paper reported, and court officers seized several damaged batteries as evidence. The circuit court judge is considering holding the lawyer in contempt of court.
Gutierrez’s client, Claudy Charles, 48, was convicted of second-degree arson, the paper reported.
