A Bus Driver's Caffeine Defense For Groping Girls

Kenneth Sands KOMO/ABC News

SEATTLE - We have heard of temporary insanity, diminished capacity, the abuse excuse and even the Twinkie defense but a caffeine defense might be pushing it.

Nevertheless, that is what Kenneth Sands, 52, is attributing his incident involving him groping five females to - "an excessive intake of caffeine," as reported by KOMOnews.com.

A bus driver for the Rainier School District by day, Sands is convicted of molesting three teenage high school girls and two women during and after a volleyball game on October 18, 2012.

The first groping incident of the night occurred while Sands was a spectator at the game when he "allegedly touched a 46-year-old woman's breasts multiple times and later tried to grab her butt as she was trying to get away from him," confirms a representative from the Lewis County Washington Sheriff's Office.

Following the game, Sands then grabbed two teenage girls outside of a school bus and proceeded to follow the volleyball players onto the bus. Sands allegedly touched another female student in an inappropriate manner. At that time "the bus driver kicked him off of the bus," according to the sheriff's office.

Sands insists his behavior was a result of caffeine and that this incident is not representative of his normal behavior.

Despite Sand's protestation of his consistent normalcy, Doctor Martin Blinder's expert psychiatric opinion of a caffeine induced groping is that he hasn't heard of such a thing.

Blinder is best known as the psychiatrist known for presenting the "Twinkie defense" in the 1979 trial of San Francisco Supervisor Dan White who gunned down San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978. In the trial, Blinder testified that a junk food diet of Twinkies and Coca-Cola contributed to White's erratic behavior.

"When someone gets depressed and abandons his diet, eats junk food, and if you are already on a downward spiral," says Blinder, "I can tell you that eating junk food is not therapeutic."

Blinder says that Twinkie's are very unnatural. "if you ever read the label on a Twinkie, only two of the ingredients sound like food products," says Blinder.

But caffeine is made out of coffee beans, all natural and free of artificial ingredients.

"We have no evidence that coffee is harmful," says Blinder. "In fact, there is some evidence that drinking it in one's old age can assist in some Alzheimer's cases."

Although Blinder does admit that if someone is trying to quit coffee cold turkey that some withdrawal symptoms have taken affect in the form of a person's behavior for example, in the form of cravings, headaches and restlessness. "But going out and molesting women is not one of those symptoms," says Blinder.

Looks as if Sands may need a new defense.

Sands was unable to be reached for a comment as he has been sentenced to 30 days for each of the five counts of fourth-degree assault, totaling five month in jail.