Woman Found Not Guilty After Castration Of Husband

LOS ANGELES - A woman who castrated her husband with a pair of scissors was acquitted yesterday of mayhem and assault with a deadly weapon.

A seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated three days before reaching its verdict in the trial of Aurelia Macias, 36, of Los Angeles.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on a lesser charge of battery filed against Macias for the Sept. 20, 1992, attack on her husband, Jaime.

Her lawyer argued that she was a battered wife who was about to be raped by her husband and believed her life was in danger when she cut off his testicles.

Deputy District Attorney Larry Longo accused her of inventing a battered-wife defense, saying she purposely castrated her husband because of jealousy over his affairs. Longo said Aurelia Macias did it while her husband slept in a drunken stupor after a party where she became jealous of her husband's dancing with another woman.

Defense attorney Nan Whitfield said there was no evidence Macias was asleep, and she denounced Longo for failing to call the husband as a witness.

Aurelia Macias, who faced 11 years in prison if convicted, testified that on the night of the attack her 39-year-old husband tried to force her to have sex while she was trying to give their 6-month-old baby a bottle.

"He wanted to have sex with me and I didn't want to. . . . I grabbed some scissors from a drawer and I harmed him. I cut him," she sobbed.

The couple is said to have reconciled since the attack.