The Florida man who claimed his girlfriend choked to death during oral sex was found not guilty of second-degree murder Monday.
Richard Patterson, 65, of Margate, was acquitted of killing 60-year-old girlfriend Francisca Marquinez in 2015 after a week-long trial, according to the Sun Sentinel.
During the trial, his lawyers initially argued that Marquinez died accidentally while performing oral sex on him at her apartment.
To bolster their defense, Patterson’s lawyers filed a motion to show his penis to the jury.
But after a medical expert testified that choking during the sex act was unlikely, the defense reversed course on the theory. The judge never ruled on the request to put Patterson’s member on display in court.
“That’s not the way she died,” defense lawyer Ken Padowitz said. “But that’s the way Richard Patterson thought she died.”
Instead, the defense argued that there was no way of knowing how she died. Medical examiners never determined the cause of death because Marquinez’s body was too decomposed.
“They still don’t know how she died,” said Padowitz, according to the Sun Sentinel.
The jury spent five hours deliberating before reaching a verdict.
If Patterson had been convicted, he would have faced life in prison.
Source: nypost.com
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