NY man who infected 13 women with HIV gets trial in state’s bid to lock him up indefinitely

NY sex offender to get trial for civil confinement

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A former drug dealer who infected at least 13 women with the AIDS virus should stand trial on New York state’s efforts to have him committed indefinitely as a dangerous sex offender, a judge ruled Thursday.

Nushawn Williams, 33, completed a 12-year prison sentence last month after pleading guilty in 1998 to statutory rape and reckless endangerment.

Just before he was to be released, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo moved to keep him in custody under a 3-year-old civil law that allows extended confinement in cases where someone has a mental abnormality and is likely to offend again.

At a probable cause hearing Thursday, state Supreme Court Justice John Michalski found there was evidence of a mental abnormality and ordered Williams to remain in custody until trial, which he tentatively set for October.

“Are other people that’s walking around with HIV, are they a threat?” Williams’ wife, Nina, asked outside the courtroom.

“He is not a threat,” his mother, Denise Williams, added, “and he don’t need to be committed.”

Williams told a state psychologist in March that he did not remember being told he was HIV positive in 1996, according to the psychologist’s report. He said he did not know his status until 1997 and never intended to infect anyone.

“I was having sex with females and wasn’t protecting myself. I was putting myself in as much a risk as they was,” Williams told Dr. Jacob Hadden, whose report formed the basis of the attorney general’s confinement efforts.

Daniel Grasso, Williams’ lawyer, has filed a motion to dismiss the confinement case. That will be argued on June 22.

Grasso, meanwhile, said Williams would prefer to return to the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden than await trial in a high-security treatment facility.

In 1997, before Williams was charged, authorities in the western New York city of Jamestown took the unusual step of making his HIV status public to try to stop further spread of the virus by Williams’ partners to others. News that the dreadlocked Bronx native known as “Face” had been found to be the common denominator in numerous HIV cases set off a panic in the city and overwhelmed clinics set up to test for the virus.

He told a reporter in 1999 that he’d had sex with 200 to 300 partners before his arrest. The youngest of those infected with HIV was 13. Two of the infected women later had children born with the virus.

“Although this is only a preliminary decision, the court has properly recognized the importance of safeguarding the community,” Cuomo spokesman John Milgrim said after Thursday’s hearing.

Williams, during the prison interview, told Hadden he would “stay in church” to ensure he doesn’t offend again.