NAMES IN THE NEWS : Murder Count for Prostitute?
A prostitute whose picture in Newsweek magazine led to her arrest may be charged with attempted murder if she has the AIDS virus.
Linda Kean, 36, was arrested on charges of violating her probation. Police said they will seek to charge her with attempted murder if a judge agrees to order her to have her blood tested and she turns out to be HIV positive.
Kean has refused to undergo the test and told police that she does not have AIDS. She denied an article in the June 25 issue of Newsweek that quoted her as saying she still worked as a prostitute in spite of having acquired the AIDS virus.
“She told me she was clean but she also told me she wasn’t violating her parole,” Police Sgt. Mike Martin said Thursday.
Martin arrested Kean minutes after seeing her photograph in the magazine. He arrested her for violating her probation from a previous prostitution conviction when she got into a man’s car in an area of town frequented by prostitutes.
The attempted murder victim would be the unidentified San Jose man who picked up Kean on Monday night. He was not arrested.
“I didn’t tell him straight up front what the problem was,” Martin said. “I told him to go home and look at Page 23 of this week’s Newsweek.”
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