Man with HIV Sent to Jail for Life After Infecting Others
A victim who testified claimed she was not aware of his HIV status during their relationship. Sean Sykes says otherwise, that she knew he had the deadly virus but still went ahead with unprotected intercourse.
Prosecutors were able to convince the courts that if Sykes remained free, other unknowing victims would be exposed to HIV. One woman who had sex with Sykes a decade ago, testified, sharing her heartbreaking story of how she contracted HIV from the defendant. She is now 29, a mother of two small children.
Sykes knew he tested positive for HIV, which usually leads to AIDS. Yet he continued to practice unsafe sexual contact with women who didn't consent to sleeping with a HIV carrier.
The exact number of women who were intimate with Sykes is unknown but three so far have tested positive for HIV themselves. It's unclear if others have been screened for the virus and are not spreading it elsewhere.
Sykes was informed of his HIV status in 1991.
Sykes spent five years in prison after being convicted in 1997 for charges of exposing women to HIV. He was originally to stay in jail for 10 years but was paroled early in 2003 after serving only half the sentence.
Even after going through the legal ramifications for his actions, Sykes ended up doing the same thing once he was free.
Sources: AP. "Mo. Man With HIV Gets Life Term for Sex" Newsday.com, http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-hiv-conviction-sentence,0,785862.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
Published by Katherine M.
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- Sean Sykes first tested positive for HIV 16 years ago.
- He was convicted and served 5 years in jail i n1997 after having sex with women who didn't know
- After being released from prison he exposed other women and will now spend life behind bars.
8 Comments
Post a CommentHE GIT WHAT HE DESERVED AND TO HE PERSON THAT SAID LIFE IN PRISON WAS A BIT EXTREME IF IT HAPPEN TO U OR URS I DONT THINK U WUD SAY THAT SO JUS THINK B4 U SPEAK,,,THATS ALL.
I just recently read about a 22 year doing the same thing in Miami. It is very sad/sick to know that someone would willing infect others knowing they have the disease. This gives new definiton to the phrase misery loves company. :-(
Wow! What is really sad about this (if I did my math correctly) was that this guy was initially infected himself when he was 16-17 years old. As a teenager, he may not have totally understood the ramifications of his actions, but the fact that he did it again after he was released from prison is very disturbing!
It almost seems like he wanted to infect the women. I'm sure that there are plenty of women out there that already have HIV that he could have had unprotected sex with. And even if the women took precautions condoms still break. And someone could lie about test results. He has to be stopped somehow. Maybe chemical castration? Man, what a cloudy issue. Good article.
Why extreme? The only bad thing is we have to pay for him to stay in prison for life.
Life in prison? That's a bit extreme...
I think that if a person with an STD knowingly has unprotected sex with someone without telling them they are infected, it is very wrong...but nevertheless, the other person should have known the risks of sleeping with someone without protection and without knowing for sure the person was clean.
OMG, I didn't even know there were such laws.