Denver Man Faces Deadly Weapon Charge Over Spitting While HIV-Positive

UPDATE: This morning, the Denver District Attorney dropped the charges, suggesting that they would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that O'Kelly had intended to commit bodily harm. Thanks for keeping up the pressure!

Just when we thought the lunacy of saliva as a transmission point for HIV was over, word comes from Colorado that William O’Kelly has been charged by Denver officials with second degree assault with a deadly weapon.

According to the Colorado Independent, a sibling site to Michigan Messenger, O'Kelly got into a verbal altercation with a man named Jason Arb, a technician with the Rocky Mountain Offender Monitoring System. Arb was installing a monitoring system in O'Kelly's home for a drunk driving offense, but when O'Kelly realized how much money the drunk driving monitoring equipment would cost, O'Kelly allegedly got angry.

Arb alleges O'Kelly spit on him. But O'Kelly's partner, Geoff Guth, says nothing of the sort happened. He further alleges that Arb became hostile and violent during the confrontation.

Once Arb learned O'Kelly was HIV-positive, he filed a complaint with Denver police. That resulted, according to the police report, in a charge that O'Kelly “unlawfully and feloniously attempted to cause bodily injury to Jason Arb, by means of a deadly weapon, namely, infected saliva.” All for just spitting.

This move comes literally a week after a judge in Michigan's Macomb County ruled that saliva — at least saliva that does not contain any blood — was not an agent of infection. That determination by Macomb County District Court Judge Peter Maceroni lead to him dismissing controversial bio-terrorism charges against the defendant, Daniel Allen. Allen had been facing the bio-terror charge, assault with intent to maim and assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder charges over an October 2009 fight with a neighbor. The neighbor, Winfred Fernandis Jr. alleges Allen attacked him without provocation, and bit his lip. But Allen says the attack was the culmination of years of anti-gay harassment, and his defense attorney argues the injury to Winfred's lip was self inflicted.

Allen's case drew international outrage, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund both filed amicus briefs in the case.

O'Kelly, meanwhile, has refused to plead guilty to any charges, and is being held on $250,000 bond. His case will now be heard in Denver at the end of June.

Send a message to Denver's District Attorney, Mitchell R. Morrissey, that these kinds of charges not only serve to criminalize people with HIV, but totally distort the law. Charging someone with "attempt to cause bodily injury" just for spitting is ludicrous. Spitting while HIV-positive should not get anyone thrown in jail, let alone charged with a felony.

Photo credit: zenobia joy