A personal fitness trainer from a Chicago suburb has been arrested and charged with knowingly transmitting HIV to several women he was dating.
Court documents show that Cook County prosecutors charged 46-year-old Jimmy Amutavi with having unprotected sex with women, despite knowing since 2001 he had the HIV virus, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Amutavi, a resident of the north suburb of Wilmette, is accused of having sexual relations with at least three women without ever telling them he was HIV positive.
The suspect is charged with three counts of a Class 2 felony charge of criminal transmission of HIV. If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison on each count, as set forth in the Illinois Compiled Statutes.
The state of Illinois has had a criminal transmission law since 1989, but made the transmission of HIV a felony with a change to its statutes in 2012.
The 2012 bill was a reaction to a 2009 case where one man was charged with infecting 13 women with the HIV virus.
Amutavi’s lawyer insisted that his client had been on a regimen of retroviral medications that made it “impossible” to transmit the virus.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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