Yes the autism is an appalling excuse.
That's not his only one, according to a new post on that Reddit thread. A young woman staying at his house where he claimed "sleepwalking" (I think that's what she was saying - ah, no, sort of. Ambien, a sleep drug that might make him 'wander' he said) and that night she woke to find him in her room with implication he was groping her.