An extremely disturbing case from the Canadian capital of Ottawa. A 29-year-old gay man is accused of not disclosing his HIV-positive status to at least four men before engaging in consensual sex. The charges have been upgraded to include attempted murder after one man became HIV positive, reports the Ottawa Citizen.
The four counts of attempted murder were laid against Steven Paul
Boone in relation to four of his alleged victims. Boone has also been
charged with four counts of administering a noxious substance — HIV — to
the four men. It now brings the total number of charges against
Boone, who is still facing 14 charges of aggravated sexual assault as
well as multiple counts of sexual assault and breach of probation, to
31. Boone also faces seven charges in Waterloo on similar accusations. Boone
was arrested in early May after an 18-year-old Ottawa man contracted
HIV after the two had unprotected sex several times in January. A bail
hearing for Boone, which began Tuesday, is expected to continue next
week. The evidence presented during that hearing is subject to a
publication ban.
This is reportedly the third recent attempted murder charge in Canada arising from an HIV exposure case.
In related news: Prosecutors in Michigan charged an HIV positive black gay man with bio-terrorism after biting a neighbor during a fight. More on that—and the Nushawn Williams case, who is being kept in prison indefinitely after serving a 12-year-sentence after infecting more than a dozen young women and girls with HIV—Our latest piece for Black AIDS Weekly: "Menace to Society? Prosecutors Using Harsher Laws in HIV Criminalization."
