Man Charged With Infecting Woman With HIV : Law: Alleged victim gave birth to a child who also tested positive for the virus, which can lead to AIDS. Case is believed to be the first in the state.

In a case described by prosecutors as the first of its kind in California, police arrested a 45-year-old unemployed carpenter Friday for allegedly infecting a woman and the child she gave birth to with the AIDS virus.

David Scott Crother of Santa Barbara turned himself in to police to answer a county grand jury indictment on 15 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one for each of the sexual liaisons he allegedly had with an unidentified Ventura County woman between September, 1988, and August, 1989.

Prosecutors said Crother knew he had the AIDS virus as early as 1988, yet had sex with the woman repeatedly without telling her about it or using a condom.

The woman and the baby he allegedly fathered have tested positive for the AIDS virus, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent J. O’Neill Jr.

Crother appeared briefly in Ventura County Superior Court to have his arraignment scheduled for Jan. 30. He was released on $1,000 bail. Judge Charles R. McGrath ordered Crother not to have any contact with the alleged victim.

If convicted on all counts, Crother faces up to eight years in state prison and $150,000 in fines, O’Neill said.

Crother declined to comment on his arrest. His lawyer, Robert Sanger of Santa Barbara, said that Crother is not admitting to any of the charges.

The case is the first prosecution of a Californian on assault charges for passing the AIDS virus to an unsuspecting person through sexual intercourse, said prosecutors in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Alameda, Sacramento and San Jose counties.

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said he knows of no similar case. Bradbury said he will ask state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) on Monday to introduce a bill that would make such conduct a felony.

The proposed bill would make the conduct punishable by life in prison without parole if the defendant intended to infect the victim. It also would make transmission of AIDS through the sharing of needles by intravenous drug users a felony.

O’Neill said the woman, whom prosecutors would not identify, complained to Ventura police last August that she believed Crother had infected her with the human immunodeficiency virus, which can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The two met in Santa Barbara in January, 1988 and began a sexual relationship, O’Neill said. At some point before September of that year, Crother tested positive for HIV antibodies and was informed that he had been infected with HIV, O’Neill said.

O’Neill would not say how Crother learned of his infection. But he said that Crother was told that HIV causes AIDS and warned that he could infect others through unprotected sex.

Despite the warnings, Crother had repeated intercourse with the woman without a condom, even after becoming aware in August, 1989, that she was pregnant, the indictment said.

The woman found out from another undisclosed source that Crother had tested positive for HIV, and learned after her baby’s birth that the infant also was HIV positive, O’Neill said.

O’Neill said his office became involved at the request of Ventura police, and began presenting witnesses in November to the Ventura County grand jury, which handed down its indictment late Thursday.

Gay rights and experts in AIDS law Friday applauded the prosecution of Crother, saying that anyone who knowingly infects an unsuspecting person should be punished.

But they warned that the law Bradbury proposes could fuel hysteria over AIDS and could present difficulties for prosecutors in obtaining convictions. One difficulty could be proving which sex partner infected a victim and the potential for malicious prosecution, they said.