Man sentenced to 10 years for knowingly infecting woman with HIV

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COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. – One woman’s life changed forever after she contracted HIV from an ex-lover.

David Brown was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday for not telling her he was HIV positive.

“My disease, that he inflicted on me, will last for the rest of my life. True, he also has the same disease, but he choose to give it to me and 10 years is just not enough” said the victim who did not want to be identified.

Brown is the first person in Collier County to be prosecuted for infecting a woman with HIV. Florida is one of 24 states that requires a person with HIV to tell their sexual partners.

She said, “I did take the precautions, I did ask, I did test, I did do what I was suppose to do. Unfortunately, I trusted a man and he lied to me.”

The victim tells WINK News she is not happy with the deal Brown got.

“I would agree to 10 years only if he was going to be able to be a registered sexual offender for the rest of his life in order to possibly keep the community safe once he’s released.”

But that couldn’t happen according to Assistant State Attorney Steven Maresca. “Under the current law, under our interpretation, he does not qualify. Otherwise, we would have been asking to put him on the list.”

“You would think it would be automatic, that’s obviously something that needs to be changed with our state law” said the victim.

She tells WINK News she is now working with an attorney to make that happen and protect others in the future.

In the meantime, she has this message, “for any other woman that possibly thinks that she may be a victim go to your local doctor, get tested, that’s all you need to do.”

When Brown was originally arrested last April, he was charged for infecting two women who contracted HIV from him.

Maresca said the other victim didn’t want to press charges so his second count was dropped.

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