posted on July 19, 2007 02:00:46 PM
People like this should be locked up and charged with attempted murder. I am surprised the military didn't discharge him months ago.
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — An HIV-positive Fort Bragg soldier has been charged with knowingly spreading the virus to a teenage boy, WRAL.com reports.
Private First Class Johnny Lamar Dalton was charged last week by civilian authorities in Cumberland County with assault with a deadly weapon, misdemeanor assault and committing a crime against nature. He is being held under a $50,000 bond and faces the same charges from the military.
Dalton was arrested after the Fort Bragg military police and the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office conducted a five-month-long investigation, where they found that the 25-year-old was engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old boy he found in a gay online chatroom and then met in person, the boy's mother told WRAL.com.
Last November, Dalton signed a written order agreeing to not have unprotected sex and to notify a partner before he did, a spokesperson for the 82nd Airborn Division told WRAL.com.
His encounters with the boy continued despite the order and despite his having a wife and children. In February, doctors conducting routine blood tests reportedly found that the otherwise healthy teen was HIV positive.
The boy, now 18, and his mother went to Fort Bragg military police and then to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office.
"My son received it [HIV] unwillingly," the teen's mother told WRAL.com. "If you willingly and knowingly ... and you purposefully do something, you should suffer the consequences."
Both the boy's mother and military investigators told WRAL.com they are worried that Dalton might have infected other people who have not come forward. The mother has said she thinks that the Army should have better control over soldiers known to be infected with HIV or AIDS.
Dalton is a member of the 22nd Aviation Support Battalion and is not allowed to deploy because of the virus.
Military and civilian prosecutors will meet to decide who will take the case to court. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 2.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
