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Man Gets 6 Months In Prison For Pleading No Contest To Knowingly Spreading HIV
A San Diego man was sentenced today to six months in prison after pleading no contest to knowingly spreading the HIV virus to his unsuspecting ex-boyfriend.
Thomas Miguel Guerra, 30, pleaded no contest on March 9 for violating a California health code that finds it's a misdemeanor offense to willfully spread contagious, infectious, or communicable disease to another person, NBC San Diego reports. The statute was put into place 20 years ago, and this case is the first of its kind to be prosecuted in San Diego County.
The case stems from a complaint Guerra's ex-boyfriend filed with San Diego Police Department in August 2013. He said Guerra lied to him about being HIV positive. According to court documents, the two began dating from April 2013 to August 2013. Guerra told his ex-boyfriend that he was HIV negative and urged that they have sex together without protection, the filing said. After a week had passed, Guerra's partner was still feeling uneasy about it all, so he had both of them test for HIV. That's when he found out both of them were HIV positive.
Guerra's ex-boyfriend said he later found messages on Guerra's computer that showed Guerra was well aware that he was HIV positive as far back as 2007. His ex sent NBC San Diego a text message showing that Guerra seemed to boast and joke to a friend about someone becoming being HIV positive. One of them read, "Yay lol. Someone getting poz that day. Already poz. Poor sucka."
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A prosecutor said in court today that there was evidence in the form of 11,000 text messages and 36 audio clips that showed Guerra knew he was HIV positive. Guerra argued that none of those messages involved his ex-boyfriend.
The judge said in court that it was "travesty" that the maximum sentence in this prosecution was only for six months, 10 News reports.
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