Story Archive

Space Case

Santino Aviles, 42, thought the Earth’s destruction was imminent. Thankfully, he spotted a spaceship so he could escape the planet. Ringing the buzzer, he was allowed into the ship, where he climbed into one of its chambers. There, he took a short nap on the couch, then threw a large ball out the window because he was “planning to float with it through the galaxy.” Unfortunately for Aviles, the “spaceship” was really a San Francisco, Calif., apartment building, and when the residents of the apartment discovered him there throwing their exercise ball onto the fire escape, they attacked him with a baseball bat and called police. His attorneys say Aviles was suffering from a methamphetamine-induced psychosis. He has been convicted of misdemeanor battery and assault, but the jury couldn’t agree on a burglary charge, and accepted Aviles’ drug-fueled psychosis as a defense and acquitted him of robbery, attempted robbery, and assault and battery. (MS/San Francisco Chronicle) ...The San Francisco jury was sympathetic, since they spend lots of time in outer space too.