By Jay Tokasz | The Buffalo News
June 8, 2013
Nushawn
Williams, the Jamestown man who gained national notoriety when accused of
spreading the virus that causes AIDS, remains behind bars more than 15 years
after his criminal offenses in Chautauqua County.
But
when a 20-year-old Buffalo man admitted in 2011 to having unprotected sex with
four young women and a 15-year-old girl while knowing he was infected with HIV,
he was sentenced to a year in jail for his crimes.
“It was
similar enough to say, ‘My God, the treatment was so different,’ ” said John R.
Nuchereno, defense attorney for Williams.
Williams,
now 36, was supposed to be freed in 2010, upon completing a 12-year sentence
for a statutory rape and reckless endangerment conviction.
Yet,
three years later, he remains in Wende State Correctional Facility because the
state attorney general contends Williams is a sexual predator likely to infect
others with HIV.
The
trial, while not open to the public, is expected to draw plenty of interest,
both from civil liberties groups troubled by the state’s civil confinement
policy and from various HIV and AIDS organizations intrigued by the potential
legal impacts of the case.
Nuchereno
already has made the stunning claim in a pretrial hearing that Williams does
not have HIV, based on a recent electron microscope analysis of his blood by
the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine.
The
contention appears likely to be a crux of Williams’ defense, which is being
aided by the Office of Medical and Scientific Justice, a nonprofit organization
based in Studio City, Calif.
The
group runs the HIV Innocence Project and has used electron microscopy results
in military trials to help defend soldiers accused of transmitting the virus to
sexual partners.
G.
Baron Coleman, an Alabama lawyer connected with the Office of Medical and
Scientific Justice who has represented several soldiers, is expected to assist
Nuchereno in at least a portion of his defense of Williams.
Lawyers
from the Attorney General’s Office questioned the legitimacy of the electron
microscope test and asked State Supreme Court Justice John L. Michalski to
allow them to do their own analysis of Williams’ blood.
Rules
of law prohibited Michalski from agreeing to the request.
But
several medical professionals and HIV experts contacted by The News said the
electron microscope was not an accepted method for finding HIV or for
monitoring a patient infected with the virus.
“Electron
microscopy is not, never has been and never will be an appropriate, relevant or
approved way to detect HIV in the blood. Indeed, it’s beyond silly suggesting
it could, would or should be used for this purpose,” said John Moore, professor
of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York
City.
‘A
little bit out of left field’
Williams’
blood was analyzed in April by Gregory M. Hendricks, manager of the Core
Electron Microscopy Facility at the UMass Medical School, who found “no
evidence” of HIV, according to a letter he sent to the Office of Medical and
Scientific Justice.
Dr.
Joseph S. Cervia, clinical professor of medicine and pediatrics at Hofstra
North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, noted that blood tests screening for the
presence of HIV antibodies have been used reliably for years to determine
whether someone has HIV.
HIV,
AIDS ‘denialists’
Seth
Kalichman, an HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment researcher, expressed
concern that the startling legal strategy in the Williams case will mislead
people about accepted science with regard to diagnosing and treating HIV.
The
Office of Medical and Scientific Justice and its executive director, Clark
Baker, are HIV and AIDS denialists, Kalichman said.
And he
said their efforts are potentially damaging to public health.
“They
have no credibility. They’re not really scientists at all,” Kalichman said.
The
organization has become adept at trying to manipulate juries in court-martial
cases by raising suspicions about HIV tests and the influence of big
pharmaceutical companies, he said.
And
that’s potentially destructive, because some people who test HIV positive can’t
deal with the reality and will seek out the misinformation put out by AIDS
denialists as a source of comfort, said Kalichman.
“These
guys provide them with a way out,” he said. “There have been people who have
died because they listened to these people.”
