Man Infects 9 With AIDS Virus in Semirural N.Y.

At least nine women in a semi-rural area of western New York state, including one as young as 13, have been infected with the virus that causes AIDS by a 20-year-old man who gave drugs to schoolgirls in exchange for sex, even though he knew he had the disease, officials said Monday.

“He liked to lurk around the edges of schools or parks, maybe where kids would be playing basketball, and pick out young ladies who may, for one reason or another, be in a risk-taking mode,” Chautauqua County Health Commissioner Richard Berke told reporters Monday.

The news shocked residents of Chautauqua County, a usually quiet area that until now had only sporadic contact with the nation’s AIDS epidemic.

The case is “the most serious public health issue in the recent memory” of the region, Berke said.

Officials of local schools were anguished. “We had, we thought, a pretty good AIDS-education program” that was designed to warn children of the dangers, said James Coffman, assistant superintendent of schools in Jamestown, the largest town in the county.

But he added: “Young people in general, they feel they’re invincible. They could have all the education in the world, but they all feel it doesn’t affect them. That’s the sadness of this.”

And officials warned that the news could get worse. Although the man who allegedly caused the infections is now in jail on unrelated charges, health officials are continuing to trace nearly 100 people in the area who had sex with him or with his sexual partners.

In addition, they believe that, in his travels across the state selling drugs, he may have infected many more people whose identities are not yet known.

“The worst piece of news is we are probably not the worst-case scenario,” Berke said.

Similar cases have occurred elsewhere. Earlier this year, for example, a man in St. Louis was fatally shot by an unknown assailant after allegedly infecting at least 30 women with the virus. But federal officials termed the current case highly unusual because of the young ages of the victims, the seemingly high percentage of people who became infected and because it took place in an area where AIDS remains relatively rare.

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Officials identified the man at the heart of the case as 20-year-old Nushawn Williams, who has used at least a dozen aliases, including Shyteek Johnson, the name under which he is currently being held at Riker’s Island Jail in New York City.

He was arrested in the Bronx in late September for selling $20 worth of crack cocaine to an undercover detective. He pleaded guilty to the charge a few days ago and is expected to be sentenced to one year in jail at a hearing next month, according to a spokesman for the Bronx district attorney’s office. He also faces a Chautauqua County arrest warrant for statutory rape of the 13-year-old.

Chautauqua County--a mix of farm country and aging manufacturing areas that lies along the shores of Lake Erie southwest of Buffalo, N.Y., is hardly a major drug market. But law enforcement officials say that drug-sellers frequently pass through the area, traveling along the interstate highway from Buffalo to Cleveland and Detroit.

In Williams’ case, drug-selling apparently brought him to the area in the summer of 1996. He was there on and off through the fall and winter. During those months, health officials believe, he had sex with 28 partners.

A few months after he arrived in the area, Williams tested positive for HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, and was counseled about the danger of transmitting it to others, Berke said. He apparently ignored those warnings.

Based on names Williams gave them, officials found at least three young women they believe he infected before he was tested. Since then, they have found another six who were infected after Williams knew he had the disease. The 13-year-old was the youngest. The oldest was 24.

A 10th woman who had sex with Williams has tested positive for the virus but may have contracted it from someone else, officials said. At least one man has also been infected.

In recent years, Chautauqua County had recorded only about seven AIDS cases annually. Many of those were people who had grown up in the area, contracted the disease elsewhere and returned to spend their last days with relatives.

The sudden plunge into the worst aspects of the epidemic left many in the area disoriented.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on the idea that this a great place to raise a family,” said Jamestown’s mayor, Richard A. Kimball Jr. “Something like this comes along and it’s like getting hit over the head.”

A local radio station devoted its afternoon talk show to the case and was deluged with angry calls from residents, many of whom denounced the state privacy laws that forbid officials to release the names of individuals infected with HIV.

If officials had released Williams’ name after he was first diagnosed with the virus, most of his victims might have been spared, many argued.

But others defended the confidentiality policy, which is part of the law in California and many other states.

“It may appeal to us emotionally to say, ‘Print these people’s names,’ but for every one person you catch, you may have 50 others who wouldn’t come in and be tested because they wouldn’t want their names published, and then they go and sleep with 50 more people,” said Mark Senak of AIDS Project Los Angeles. “You can’t make zero risk.”

State officials released Williams’ name Monday after winning a court order under an exception to the state privacy law for cases of health emergency.