Magician’s Defense May Be Tough to Swallow

Randall Richman swears he didn’t drink the night he was arrested for drunk driving.

He admits that he did eat fire.

The breath test that measured his blood alcohol at twice the legal limit wasn’t detecting liquor, according to the 32-year-old magician from Westlake Village. It was reading three different lighter fluids.

“I use the stuff that says on the bottle, ‘If you drink this, you’re going to die,’ ” Richman said.

For his act, Richman saturates a slab of cotton with the stuff and sets it on fire, swishes some lighter fluid in his mouth, and sticks the flaming swab in his mouth.

“I’ve gone up in flames twice,” he said. “I have some scars on my face. I’ve lost hair and burned a $1,200 tuxedo.”

His defense at his April 12 trial will be unusual but not unique. In 1991, a San Francisco jury acquitted professional fire-eater Ted Maschal on similar charges.

Richman was stopped on Dec. 7, 1999, just before midnight, for driving without headlights. He was going 55 in a 35-mph zone, wasn’t carrying a driver’s license, had bloodshot eyes and couldn’t stand, according to the police report. And there was about him “an odor of an unknown alcoholic beverage.”

Richman says he had just taught a fire-eating class at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.