Reported by Yolanda Spivey
In 1997, the state of New York was in a panic after learning about a young black man named Nushawn Williams, a homeless teenager at the time who’d sell drugs to support himself, infected 14 white women with Williams, a Brooklyn, NY native, wandered to different towns within the state of New York. He eventually settled in Jamestown, NY, a small town in Chautauqua County, a rural community with a population of 142,000. There he would meet young troubled women, all who dabbled in drugs and high-risk seχual behavior.
After the HIV scandal was widely publicized, it was reported that Williams had slept with 47 women in Chautauqua County and 28 more in New York City. Fourteen of those women were diagnosed as being HIV positive—the youngest infected was only 13-years-old.
In 1996, Williams pled guilty to two counts of statutory rαpe and one count of reckless endangerment in the first degree for having unprotected seχ with women who did not know of his HIV status. He was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison.
Although sixteen years have passed, Nushawn Williams remains locked up in custody although he has served his sentence. A New York State law has the right to hold Williams under “civil confinement” if they feel that he is a threat to the public.
According to Chautauqua County, a jury determined that Williams has a mental abnormality that makes him likely to commit more seχual crimes in the future. They subsequently rendered him a dangerous seχ offender. And this year in March, the State Supreme Court upheld Chautauqua County’s decision; Judge John Michalski ordered that Williams be committed to a secure treatment facility designated by the Office of Mental Health.
However, it is alleged that Williams is HIV-negative and has always been.
In the 90’s after feeling sick, Williams went to a local clinic in Jamestown, NY where an HIV test was administered. Although the test allegedly came back positive, Williams never followed up with a second test to confirm the results. According to his ex-girlfriend Amber Arnold, he thought the clinic “was lying to him to run him out of Jamestown.”
