Emmy-winning producer gets 13 years in prison for trying to kill Studio City tenant over Oscars joke
An Emmy-winning producer was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in state prison for trying to kill a tenant who laughed after he declared he would win five Academy Awards someday, authorities said.
Andre Bautista, known as Andre Bauth, was found guilty by a judge on Feb. 2 of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon in the stabbing, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
The prison sentence concludes a two-year saga that started on Sept. 8, 2015, in a boarding house in Studio City.
The 38-year-old Colombian actor and producer was the operator of the boarding house in the 3100 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
That day, prosecutors said, Bautista told the tenant that he would win multiple Oscars someday. When the tenant laughed, Bautista became upset and started arguing with him.
The tenant, who identified himself as Clayton Haymes to KCBS-TV, said, “When he said ‘five Oscars,’ we all kind of laughed a little bit, and he got really upset.”
Bautista was enraged and stormed out of the room, prosecutors said. He entered the kitchen and grabbed a knife, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Bautista followed the tenant into another bedroom and stabbed him in the chest, piercing his lung, prosecutors said.
Bautista fled to Mexico after the attack.
Los Angeles police issued a warrant for Bautista’s arrest on Sept. 10, 2015. He surrendered a week later at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.
During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence indicating Bautista had written and starred in an independent movie with a plot twist similar to the charges he was facing.
The film portrayed a landlord who killed his tenants, prosecutors said.
Bautista won a daytime Emmy in 2015 as a producer for the online soap opera “The Bay.”
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