Dating Nightmares: Nushawn Williams Speaks

By Angela Bronner, BlackVoices.com

In 1999, a sensational story rocked the New York City area.

Twenty-one-year-old Nushawn Williams was accused and later convicted of infecting at least 13 women and girls with HIV.

According to the Washington Post, Williams had identified 48 sexual partners to Chautauqua County health officials. Of those 48, 41 were eventually tested. Thirteen turned up positive, six got pregnant -- and at least one baby was born HIV positive.

The New York press had a field day -- the story hit on the holy triumverate of sensationalism: race, sex and class. Black guy from the "city" (Brooklyn) goes to working class town in upstate New York, has sex with a plethora of white women -- many of them teenagers -- and infects them with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.

On Friday, the E! channel premieres a THS (True Hollywood Story) on "dating nightmares" and will feature an exclusive interview with Nushawn Williams -- his first ever.

"I was not the type of individual that would go around sleeping with women knowing that I was HIV positive," says Williams on 'THS Investigates Dating Nightmares'. "I didn't know I was HIV positive."

The show also interviews several doctors. Chautaguqua County health official Dr. Richard Berke, the doctor who connected all these young women to this one young man, called Williams a "potent spreader."

Dr. Neil Rzepkowski, an HIV expert says, "I think that Nushawn was in denial. When you're told something, a lot of people hear it and then it goes right out their consciousness."

Sexual, racial, class stuff aside, the most interesting part of this is the legal aspect of this story.

Nushawn Williams did not go to jail for intentionally spreading what was then thought to be a fatal (now classified as chronic) disease. He went to jail for statutory rape -- one of the girls he infected was 13 years old.

We covered this last year in the AIDS blog when a man from Texas was convicted under similar circumstances.

Willie Atkins was not jailed for sleeping with over 300 young boys and men, even though he knew he was HIV positive. He was jailed on statutory rape charges because some of the boys were teenagers.

To date, there is no federal law that says that one cannot be jailed for intentionally spreading HIV. It is not viewed as a crime in most states.

To hear more from Nushawn Williams, tune into 'THS INVESTIGATES: DATING NIGHTMARES'

May 16 @ 8PM EST - premiere

May 17 @ 5PM

May 18 @ 1PM

May 25 @ 5PM

May 27 @ 3PM

June 3 @ 8PM

June 6 @ 9AM

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