Australia: Man pleads guilty to infecting wife, gets three years
US: Another Illinois man pleads guilty, gets two years probation
Canada: Yet another African migrant guilty, this time in BC
US: Tennessee man accused of infecting woman during ‘drug holiday’, confesses to police
A 47 year-old man from Portland, Tennesseee became the 15th person to be prosecuted under Tennessee’s criminal HIV exposure laws this week after he was charged with three counts of criminal exposure to HIV.
The details of this case, as reported on the tennesseean.com, are rather unusual since the man took a ‘drug holiday’ during his relationship with the woman, and may have been aware that his viral load would have increased during this time.
He also apparently waived his Miranda rights and confessed to his arresting officers that he had unprotected sex with the female complainant, who tested HIV-positive in December 2008, “without her knowledge or consent”.
She told police she met Tanner, 47, in December 2007 and began dating him in January 2008.
The woman alleges she had sex with him four times between April and November 2008, and three of those four times were unprotected.
Before this relationship, she had been living in abstinence, and she further told authorities Tanner was the only man she had been intimate with in several years.
According to police, the woman alleged Tanner told her [in] Nov [2008] that he had been diagnosed with positive HIV approximately 10 years before their relationship began.
Tanner reportedly told her he had been on a “holiday,” which he described as when an individual stops taking his prescribed medication.
He further told authorities he had been on the holiday approximately 10 to 12 months. The woman found out Dec. 30 she was HIV positive and claims when Tanner found out he said, “Now that you are sick like me, I can take care of you.”
Although HIV transmission is alleged to have taken place, in Tennessee this does not have to be proven for the man to be found guilty.
US: Georgia man gets two years for HIV exposure
A 38 year-old man from Macon, Georgia has been jailed for two years and must also serve 200 hours of community service whilst on eight years probation following his release, for having sex with a woman he planned to marry without telling her he was HIV-positive. The woman has not tested HIV-positive.
The details of the case are unusual in that the complainant met the man whilst he was living in housing specifically for people with HIV, which is where they had sex. Yet he didn’t disclose his HIV status, and she didn’t ask (or look around her). She still called the police when she discovered his status, and since Georgia has HIV-specific HIV disclosure laws, he’s paying dearly for his silence. He claims he was going to disclose his status when he married her.
Of course, the Assistant District Attorney Greg Winters asked for a five year prison sentence because…
“This is reckless conduct,” he told the court. “It’s basically playing with a loaded gun, playing Russian roulette.”
Fortunately, this tired cliché didn’t wash with the judge who gave a relatively mild sentence – but then since there was only one complainant, who hasn’t since tested positive, what exactly was the ‘crime’ anyway?
Canada: Another heterosexual migrant charged with HIV exposure
[Update]US: Charges dropped in Wisconsin ‘HIV exposure’ case
US: New York man faked HIV test, charged with reckless endangerment
Canada: Toronto man gets a year in jail for HIV exposure after Crown appeals lenient sentence
An HIV-positive Toronto man found guilty in May of HIV exposure, has had his one year suspended sentence increased to one year in prison, following an appeal by the Crown at the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Apparently, “the sentence imposed by a Superior Court judge last May was outside the range of sentences for other HIV-positive offenders who’ve knowingly had unprotected sex and it failed to take into account the breach of trust.”
This is one of those cases in which incarceration is the only way to express society’s outrage, said Justice Eleanore Cronk, who wrote the decision.
“The respondent’s non-disclosure of his HIV-positive status meant that (his girlfriend) was essentially duped, for a prolonged period, into having sexual relations with (X), she said.
Interestingly, the original case failed to make the papers first time around. Article from The Toronto Star, below.