A Florida man who claimed that his girlfriend choked to death during oral sex was found not guilty of second-degree murder on Monday.
According to the Sun Sentinel, 65-year-old Richard Patterson of Margate was acquitted of the murder of 60-year-old girlfriend Francisco Marquines in 2015 after a week-long trial. sex with him in her apartment.
To bolster their defense, Patterson’s lawyers filed a motion to show his member to the jury.
But after a medical examiner showed that choking during intercourse was unlikely, the defense changed course towards that theory. The judge never made a decision on the request to put Member Patterson on public display in court.
“She didn’t die like that,” said attorney Ken Padowitz. “But Richard Patterson thought she died that way.”
Instead, the defense argued that it was impossible to know how she died. The medical examiners never established the cause of death because Marquesne’s body was too decomposed.
“They still don’t know how she died,” Padowitz said, according to Sun Sentinel.
Before reaching a verdict, the jury judged five hours.
If Patterson was convicted, he would face life in prison.