Man Who Infected Son With HIV Gets Life

A man who injected his son with the AIDS virus to avoid paying child support was sentenced Friday to life in prison by a judge who warned that he “is going to burn in hell from here to eternity.”

Brian Stewart, 32, of Columbia, Ill., stared straight ahead as Judge Ellsworth Cundiff handed down the maximum sentence for first-degree assault. The judge added that he wished the sentence could have been stronger.

“My thought is, injecting a child with the HIV virus really puts you in the same category as the worst war criminal,” Cundiff said. “I believe when God finally calls you, you are going to burn in hell from here to eternity.”

Stewart was convicted Dec. 6 of injecting the boy with HIV-tainted blood during a hospital visit in 1992. The child was 11 months old at the time. Now 7, the boy was diagnosed with AIDS in 1996. If he dies, Stewart could be tried on a murder charge.

Prosecutors said Stewart was trying to avoid child support payments. Stewart, who worked as a hospital technician, took the blood from his workplace, prosecutors said.

At the sentencing, the boy’s mother, identified only as Jennifer, tearfully read a statement from her son that said: “I feel mad. I think he shouldn’t ever be out of jail. He shouldn’t have done this. Why did he do such a bad thing to me?”

Stewart’s attorney, Joseph Murphy, said he has filed an appeal.

The defense contended the boy could have contracted the virus in other ways. But the boy never had a blood transfusion, and a medical exam found no evidence of sexual abuse.