Stephen is 38 years old. He was brought up in the sprawling Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario, cottage country, as it’s called. The son of middle-class parents, his hemophilia - a disease which is the catalyst for his extraordinary story told here - was inherited from his mother. A blood transfusion at the age of twelve set the wheels in motion that, decades later, led to six charges of aggravated sexual assault, the charge most often used to prosecute cases of non disclosure of HIV status, from which he received two convictions and a two year jail term.
Now out on parole and trying hard to reintegrate in to society, he wants to do what he didn’t do at trial - talk about his case, albeit with an assumed name. His real name has drawn enough publicity already, with the local police issuing a public safety alert and his picture in the press, when he was first charged.
Stephen’s an engaging guy - talkative, funny and composed. He expresses himself well, and, I think you'll agree, with insight. I interviewed him in the quiet corner of a downtown bar, away from prying ears. From time to time, the barman came to check on us but I waved him away, because Stephen was on a roll, weaving a fascinating story of almost unfathomable personal catastrophe. This is what he said to me.
Bob Leahy: Stephen, thanks for talking to PositiveLite.com. Why don’t you begin by telling us what happened to you, in a nutshell.
Stephen: About five years ago I was convicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault for not disclosing to my female partners. Originally there were six charges, but four of them were dropped because of my viral load.
You were undetectable?
For four of them I was, for the two earlier ones I was not, and that’s why those two stuck. So I was found guilty on two charges and I received a sentence of two years to be served in a federal penitentiary.
And you’re now out on parole?
Yes, I’m out on parole and living back in Toronto now by myself. I’m on parole for another year, ‘til next May.
So let’s go right back to the beginning of your story, Stephen. You are a hemophiliac, aren’t you, and this is really how all this got started.
Yes, I’m a hemophiliac and have been since birth. It’s a hereditary disease, runs in the family, and I received tainted blood from the Red Cross back in 1986, and that’s how I became infected with HIV. I was twelve years old at the time.
So what was it like growing up with HIV? Did anybody else know, like your school buddies?
No. Nobody knew. When I was diagnosed my mother and father weren’t together and my mother chose to deal with it a little differently than most people would. I was always told not to tell anybody and that ultimately was my demise. It stuck with me and it was always very difficult for me to tell anyone about it, or even talk about it at all. It just wasn’t talked about.
So you weren’t in the practice of disclosing to anybody, including girls that you met as you got older. That would have been very challenging for you, correct?
Absolutely, yes. I mean I didn’t tell anyone, not even my friends.
So what age did you start dating and when did all this become an issue? Had you, for instance, become aware of the laws concerning non-disclosure at that time?
I don’t think I was aware of the legal part of it then. I was told that it was important to disclose but there wasn’t much counselling. It wasn’t handled the way it should probably have been handled. So there was a wall there. I would tell girls but it wouldn’t be at the very beginning of a relationship. When I would feel the courage to finally disclose it was never the right time and ultimately it was the end of whatever was going on.
So you were challenged to find the right time and the right words?
Yes, it really took a lot of building up to. The guilt would eat and eat away at me, you know, and I would just feel so bad. I would always know at the back of my mind that I had to say something but the words just wouldn’t physically come out of my mouth.
But at some stage you felt it was the right thing to do, to tell a girl that you were going with that you had this heath issue, that you were HIV-positive?
Yes, I would ultimately tell them and eight times out of ten it would end badly. It was hard. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to have that relationship in my life, you know? Those were the things that I wanted.
Tell me what went wrong in the end. A girl went to the police whom you had disclosed to, right?
Yes. It was another case where I didn’t tell her in the beginning. I finally built the courage up and told her after maybe three weeks, a month of going out. She took it very badly – and she just left. And then maybe about a month later, the police came and arrested me, and that’s when the media came and really did a number on me. They wrote false stories about me. The newspapers said that I was trying to lure girls off the internet and infect them, which was hardly the case. And then they put my picture on the news. And after that, some other girls came forward and said they were involved with me as well.
I assume you weren’t using condoms.
Sometimes, sometimes not.
So how did this interaction with the police happen? Did you get a knock on the door or something?
Yes, it was early in the morning. I think it was around eight o’clock. They knocked on my door and asked if they could come in. They asked me if I knew who this girl was, “do you know her?”, and I said “yes”.
Did you have any idea what it was about at that point?
Not really at the beginning . And then . . .
You hadn’t seen her for a few weeks. Did you part on bad terms?
Yes, because of me disclosing. She was upset. I tried to talk to her. She was concerned about her own health. But she got tested and nobody got anything. That was a good thing. glad that nobody got anything.
Anyway, when the police visited, you were alone at the time?
I was at home with my dog.
So how did the conversation with the police go?
Not very well. They said you are being charged with so and so. You need to come with us. I kind of remember having some kind of attack. I don’t know whether it was an anxiety attack, because I’d never experienced anything like that, so . . . I had some sort of episode. Then I just got dressed and went with them to the police station. They tried to get stuff out of me before I had a chance to call a lawyer. They kept me there for a few hours before they even asked me if I wanted to talk to a lawyer. I went to the court and they put me on bail and then I started looking for a lawyer. They had appointed one for me just to speak for me at the hearing but I spoke to my father and he said he wanted someone who wasn’t involved from the town.
So you got bail . . .
Yes. My mother bailed me out. My father was on vacation at the time.
This all would have been a difficult discussion with your parents. How did that go?
They were very supportive. They weren’t upset with me. My father blamed my mother (they are separated) for some of the circumstances, her telling me not to tell anyone. She didn’t tell him for five years after I was diagnosed. My father always said to me after he had found out that this (my HIV diagnosis) would all have been handled very differently if he had known. Me and my father are very, very, very close.
So when you got a lawyer, what did the lawyer advise you?
Actually I went to St Michael's (Hospital) first because that was my only connection to anything involving HIV and they put me in the direction of Ryan Peck from HALCO - very good guy – so Ryan put me in the right direction. I went to see him and he gave me a list of all the lawyers that dealt with them and he said of the lawyer that I got – he said “I recommend her, she’s the best of all” and that’s who I ended up getting.
What did you share with your lawyer?
Most of what was talked about with my lawyer was that it was going to go that my viral load was undetectable. That was her strategy to get most of the (six) charges dropped. The two that eventually stuck, I think she knew in the back of her mind they were going to stand, no matter what, I was going to be found guilty of those. We ran back and forth on whether we were going to go to trial or not and then at the very end of it all, we decided not to go to trial.
So that I understand it, the two charges that stuck related to earlier offences which occurred when your viral load was not yet undetectable and not the one that related to the woman who first came forward to lodge a complaint. So it was your past that caught up with you rather than your recent behaviour.
Yes, yes, definitely my past.
So did you plead guilty to the charges?
No. We went back and forth. I was on bail for four years before my case came to trial. Two of those years I had to live with my mom under strict house arrest, wasn’t allowed out at all unless I was with my mother or my father. The last two years I spent in Toronto by myself, under strict conditions. I was found guilty in 2008 and I wasn’t sentenced until four years later. They were trying to figure out where I was going to go in view of my health conditions.
How was that time where you were waiting to be sentenced?
It was horrible. I think at the end I was more wanting to get it over with than anything, because it had gone on so long that . . .
Were you aware of the range of sentences that you could be getting?
Well at first the Crown wanted eight years, the maximum she could get. The talk went on and my doctor brought out other high-up doctors and all that stuff about undetectable viral load got talked about, and at the very end, she dropped to four and then a two year term. My lawyer said that was about the best deal that I could get.
You remember the day that you were sentenced? What state of mind were you in?
I was very upset.
Were you crying?
Oh yes, I cried in court. I was beside myself.
Did you testify in court?
No not at all. I never once got to speak in court. I was never asked how I felt about anything.
So when the judge said “two years” what did you think?
I already knew that was what I was going to get. It had been arranged with the Crown. I guess I had to accept it, so that was what I did. I mean my family support helped; they said they would there with me every step of the way. They would visit. So I had that to hold on to.
Were the “victims” – you know what I’m saying - in court at that time?
Two of them were. One of them was the subject of one of the charges that stuck and one was a girl whose charges had been dropped.
Did you have any interaction with them?
Ummmmm. Yes, I got to see them. I got to look at them. It wasn’t good. I felt very guilty, very bad and very sad . . .
So would you say this was the worst moment in your life?
Yes, I think it’s right up there.
So at this point, they led you away, straight to jail. What happened?
(to be continued tomorrow)