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. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />As if right on cue, smoke began billowing out of the lawyer’s pants pocket, prompting him to run out of the courtroom. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />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.
