There Is No Way...

The jury in delivering their verdict of guilty was obviously not entirely impressed with the verity of Steven Boone's lawyer's attempts to persuade them that his client was not really serious when he made countless declarations online of deliberately making an effort to infect other men with HIV.  This was his stated goal.

He enthused over the number of other men he had deliberately failed to inform he was HIV-positive, insisting he was on a mission to increase statistics.

He called himself a "poz vampire", revelling in having unprotected sex with men he had never informed.  And now, after all the damning testimony emotionally detailed, the man has been found by a jury of his 'peers', guilty of three counts of attempted murder and administering a noxious substance on three young men, including a 17-year-old whose testimony was injured and moving.

"There is no way I was trying to kill anyone", a sobbing and shaking Steven Boone said to his lawyer as he was being led away from the prisoner's box.  He was convicted as well of three counts of aggravated sex assault.  The jury saw fit to acquit him of two counts of aggravated sexual assault relating to oral sex, where transmission was felt unlikely.

This man, so intent on transmitting his HIV infection to others claimed use of condoms caused cancer.  And that living with HIV was a mere inconvenience, one that came with a bonus; an increased sex drive.  Online he boasted he had "lost count" of the number of men he had enjoyed sex with, without bothering to inform them of his own health status.

He would claim he had just himself discovered he had the disease and felt awkward informing anyone about when he was confronted by others who had been informed he was HIV-positive.  He was innocence personified on those occasions.  But evil incarnate in his self-appointed mission to infect as many sex partners as he could manage.

"I risked everything...EVERYTHING... and I got nothing but a disease that causes most guys to turn away from me.  I'm tired of being cast as the villain.  I'm tired of people seeing me as someone who is trying to cause harm to others", he wrote self-pityingly, eager to excuse himself and have others come to his defence, before his arrest.

He alluded to his "self sacrifice", in knowingly having sex with a partner who was infected, and thus becoming infected himself, only to have the man whom he had "sacrificed" himself for leave him.  Now, as a result of his malicious attempts to infect others in an ill-conceived mission of revenge, the Crown is expected to have him labelled a dangerous offender.

In which case he will have a very long time incarcerated to think about his choice of crime.