/ 28 January 2005

Police pounce on pantless perpetrator

The naked jogger has met his fate: a year in jail and a $1 000 (R5 950) fine for running around the neighbourhood without his shorts.

Fate Patterson (39), of West Memphis, Arkansas, was convicted on Wednesday of indecent exposure, fleeing and resisting arrest.

Municipal Court Judge William P Rainey sentenced him to a fully clad year behind bars.

Police had received reports for several months from a West Memphis neighbourhood of a man jogging in the nude before they arrested Patterson on January 11, an unseasonably warm day.

Officers said they saw Patterson jogging bare from the waist down and ordered him to stop. When he kept running, officers used a stun gun to pause the pursuit of the pantless perpetrator.

Patterson was supposed to undergo a mental evaluation, but Rainey cancelled it when Patterson admitted he entered a Florida woman’s home naked two years ago.

”I don’t need a mental health evaluation,” Rainey said. ”He’s not crazy. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” — Sapa-AP