PTSD Helps South Bay Man Beat Robbery Wrap

A Santa Clara County jury has acquitted an Army veteran of armed robbery because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jurors found 34-year-old Sargent Binkley not guilty by reason of insanity Tuesday.

Authorities say Binkley robbed a Mountain View pharmacy of drugs at gunpoint in 2006. The same jury convicted him of the crime last week, but accepted the PTSD argument during the sanity phase of the trial.

Binkley is a West Point graduate who served as an Army officer in Bosnia and Honduras. His attorneys say he became traumatized after guarding a mass grave in Bosnia and shooting a Honduran during a drug raid.

If found to be sane, he would have faced 12 to 22 years in prison.

Binkley has been taken into custody to determine if he should be treated for PTSD in a state hospital or as an outpatient.