With Malice Aforethought

"I am negative and whoever is telling you otherwise is being malicious and i am sorry that they have put you through that.  I'm just as much a victim as u are ... there is NO WAY i have hiv."
Steven Paul Boone

This email presented as evidence in a trial where Steven Paul Boone has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated sex assault and administering a noxious substance - HIV.  Steven Paul Boone made a habit of assuring potential sex partners that he was clean.  He made it a habit not to divulge to sex partners that he was HIV-positive. 

He became infected himself out of an intimate relationship where he was unaware that his partner of the time was infected, only later to learn when they parted, that he had contracted HIV himself.  The email that was revealed as evidence during his trial was written to a young man of 17 who had arrived recently in a new city, knowing no one, finding a friend online.

That friend betrayed him.  They had unprotected sex, and only later did the 17-year-old become aware that he might be in trouble.  The man who had assured him he was not HIV-positive had boasted to his roommate of having unprotected sex numerous times with the 17-year-old.  And it was the roommate who divulged to that young man that he might have been exposed to HIV.

So that, when he questioned Steven Paul Boone, the texted response was: "I don't know what's going on but I can assure you I don't have hiv."  Furthermore he was absolutely "shocked" that anyone might besmirch his good name in such a manner, absolutely "shocked".  This statement of innocence did not, however serve to reassure the 17-year-old. 

He testified at trial that he was "absolutely furious", because he had been repeatedly assured that the man he trusted was disease-free.  "I thought I was going to vomit.  I was terrified.  I was confused, scared.  I was crying", said the young man, now 20, three years after the event.  This was his state of mind when he had been contacted at an online dating forum by the roommate.

This young man was only one of six who had experienced sex with Steven Paul Boone, who enjoyed boasting that he was intent on infecting as many unsuspecting sex partners as he could possibly manage to.  HIV testing resulted finally in the young man being informed that he was not infected after all, but in the interim he lived in dread, "this dark cloud hanging over me."

Two other sex partners unfortunate enough to believe Steven Paul Boone were not as fortunate; both tested positive for HIV.