A Texas man convicted of child sexual assault has died after drinking from a bottle as his verdict was read in court.
As reported by NBC News, 57-year-old Edward Leclair started drinking what has been described as a clear liquid from a bottle after being convicted by a jury.
The incident took place on Thursday afternoon (August 11) at the 16th District Court of Denton County in Texas.
Leclair's lawyer, Mike Howard, has recalled the moment his client started chugging the fluid after the jury announced its verdict following over three hours of deliberation.
"I looked over and noticed him drinking," the lawyer said. "His hand was shaking. At the time, I thought it was shaking because of the verdict. Then he kept drinking and drinking."
Leclair, a former Navy mechanic, was facing 100 years in prison for his crimes, which included five counts of sexual assault on a person between the age of 14 and 17.
Howard has informed the court that his client maintained he was innocent of all allegations.
Assistant District Attorney Jamie Beck has described the liquid in Leclair's plastic water bottle as "cloudy" to the Denton Record-Chronicle, but it has not yet been confirmed what the man had consumed.
Regarding Leclair's possible sentence, Howard said: "With charges like these, if they find a defendant guilty a very stiff punishment is certainly possible."
After consuming the liquid, Leclair was transported to a holdover cell to await sentencing.
Howard says he was able to talk to Leclair briefly in the cell, and described his client as "dejected and in shell shock".
Upon returning to the courtroom after a short period, Leclair started to vomit.
Court proceedings were stopped and the jury was sent home. Beck tells CNN that "medical intervention" occurred in the courtroom, before Leclair was transported to a nearby hospital.
His lawyer says: "Forty-five minutes after the whole thing began, I was notified by the hospital that he'd been declared dead." Howard adds that he never saw his client put anything suspicious in his bottle, adding: "We weren't looking for that. Frankly, no one was looking for that."
NBC News states that the jury was informed of Leclair's passing on Friday (August 12) and informed that his death was not their fault.
Leclair's cause of death is set to be determined by the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.
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