Woman Gets 26 1/2 Years in HIV Case

An HIV-infected woman who said she had a series of one-night stands to get “revenge” for contracting the virus from her boyfriend was sentenced Friday to 26 1/2 years in prison after changing her story in court.

Pamela Wiser apologized to the men she exposed to the disease. She denied her earlier statements that she exposed them intentionally and testified that she just couldn’t refuse when they asked her for sex.

“I didn’t know what I was thinking. I had a lot on my mind,” Wiser testified in Circuit Court.

Wiser, 29, pleaded guilty in December to 22 counts of knowingly exposing partners to HIV.

Last summer, Wiser told reporters that she contracted HIV from an ex-boyfriend and then had a series of one-night stands with up to 50 men she met at bars in largely rural Bedford and Marshall counties in central Tennessee. She said she never told them she had the AIDS virus.

She retracted that statement, saying she had sex with fewer partners and warned them all that she was HIV-positive. On Friday, Wiser testified that she had sex with about 18 men.

A 1994 state law makes it a felony to knowingly expose another person to HIV, even if the victim does not contract the virus.

Five of seven men named in the case testified she did not inform them of her medical condition when they had sex with her in 1997 and 1998. One of the seven--30-year-old Barry Cozart--said he has since tested positive for HIV.

In New York, meanwhile, a man suspected of passing the AIDS virus to at least a dozen young women has admitted that he knowingly exposed a 15-year-old girl to the virus.

Nushawn Williams, who is HIV-positive, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment for having unprotected sex with a New York City high school student, prosecutors said Thursday.

A spokeswoman for Bronx Dist. Atty. Robert Johnson wouldn’t say whether the girl, whose name wasn’t released, had the virus.

Williams is serving a one- to three-year prison sentence for selling cocaine. He could receive up to seven years in prison when he is sentenced on the endangerment charge April 8.

Williams, 21, admitted that he had unprotected sex with the teen in May 1997, eight months after he tested positive, Johnson said.

Williams is suspected of knowingly passing HIV to a dozen people in upstate Chautauqua County, authorities said.