Man With HIV Sentenced for Having Unprotected Sex

A man infected with the AIDS virus who was convicted last week of attempted murder for having unprotected sex with a 17-year-old girlfriend was sentenced Monday to at least nine years in jail.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ancer Haggerty sentenced Alberto Gonzalez, 28, after his conviction on 12 charges in the 1990 affair with the teen-ager.

Gonzalez is the first person in Oregon convicted of attempting to kill someone by having unprotected sex while being HIV-positive.

Gonzalez spoke bitterly in the courtroom at the sentencing hearing.

“The court did everything to hand me over to the state on a silver platter--which in fact it did,” he told the court and reporters gathered in the hearing room.

During the seven-day trial, Deputy District Atty. David Peters charged that Gonzalez had sexual intercourse with the girl in a deliberate attempt to give her the virus, which causes AIDS.

Peters said Gonzalez had used the virus as a “dangerous weapon” and thus was guilty of attempting to kill the woman.

The girl has tested negative for HIV, but two other former girlfriends of Gonzalez’s tested positive, including one who developed AIDS and died this year.

Gonzalez pleaded no contest last year to recklessly endangering the life of Bridgett Pederson, one of the two infected women who have since developed acquired immune deficiency syndrome. No charges have been filed in the case of the woman who died.

The 17-year-old said Gonzalez had sex with her after they smoked marijuana. She testified that he did not use a condom or tell her he was HIV-positive.