A Story in today's New York Daily News of a man knowing exposing his girlfriend to HIV on this the National HIV Testing Day it goes to show why you need to know the status of your partner as well as your status. And to make sure that she is in the clear she has to take 2 more HIV tests for the next 6 months. every 3 months just to make sure that she has not contracted the disease.
A Brooklyn man has been charged with knowingly exposing his girlfriend to the AIDS virus - leaving her praying that her lying lover hasn't handed her a "death warrant."
Clyde Small, 43, allegedly told his 31-year-old girlfriend that he had tested negative for HIV and began a physical relationship with her - even though he was already taking medication for the virus. "I'm scared because this is a death warrant," the woman told the Daily News last night.
"This was someone I trusted. Now, I have to keep getting tested."
The woman said she met Small, an electrician, on an L train platform in Canarsie in March while she was visiting Brooklyn from Ohio. They went on a date at Junior's and continued talking on the phone daily after she returned home. In early April, he wired her money to fly her back to New York and live with him. The woman, a communications student, said she questioned Small early on about his HIV status and first became intimate with him on April 11.
"There was part of me feeling like something wasn't told to me," said the woman, whose name is being withheld at her request. "I remember asking him, 'Have you ever been tested?' He kept avoiding it." A week later, the woman persuaded Small to get tested at a downtown Brooklyn clinic, and his results came back positive. "I was thinking to myself, 'Please God, no!'" she said.
In the weeks that followed, the girlfriend said she also learned that Small was still married and, more troubling, had bottles of HIV medication that dated before the April diagnosis.
She immediately moved out and contacted authorities. "'When did you find out? How long have you had the virus?'" she says she asked him. "I said, 'You should get a damn Oscar.'" In early June, the woman said Small admitted to her that he knew he was infected all along. The woman said police were initially reluctant to press charges, but the district attorney's office accepted the case. "We heard her story. We called the police and said, 'Go ahead and make the arrest and we will prosecute,'" said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the Brooklyn DA's office. Small was arraigned yesterday in Brooklyn Criminal Court on misdemeanor charges of reckless endangerment and was released on $1,500 bail. He was not reachable for comment. So far, the woman has tested negative for the virus, but she needs to get through six months of tests before she's in the clear. She had this advice for other women: "Listen to your gut and listen to what's not being told to you."
DA: HIV lie left lover in limbo