ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — An HIV-positive man who told a partner that they could safely have unprotected sex should face a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge, not a felony, New York's highest court ruled Thursday. 
 
 The Court of Appeals said Terrance Williams didn't expose his partner "out of any malevolent desire" to give him the virus that causes AIDS, though he lied about having the infection and his partner did get sick. The court said the Syracuse man didn't show "depraved indifference," which is necessary to support the felony charge. 
 
 The judges declined to decide whether HIV infection no longer "creates a grave and unjustifiable risk of death" because of advances in medical treatment. Two lower courts had reached that conclusion while knocking down the felony indictment to the lesser charge. 
 
 The felony could have sent Williams to prison for seven years. He still faces the misdemeanor and a possible year in jail if convicted. 
 
 "Without a doubt, defendant's conduct was reckless, selfish and reprehensible," the court majority said in a memorandum. "Under our case law, though, this is not enough to make out a prima facie case of depraved indifference." 
 
 Ruling in the majority were Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and Judges Susan Read, Jenny Rivera and Sheila Abdus-Salaam. 
 
 In a dissent, Judge Eugene Pigott Jr. said he'd reinstate the felony charge, because Williams' repeated lies showed "utter indifference" for the victim's fate, though he had later expressed remorse. 
 
 Attorney Kristen McDermott, who argued Williams' appeal, said New York has never passed a specific law about HIV transmission, unlike some other states. Onondaga County prosecutors are trying to make it a criminal act under the reckless endangerment statute, she said. 
 
 The partner's risk of contracting HIV in the four or five times they had sex were low, and his prospects of that and also dying from AIDS were "extraordinarily low," McDermott said. There are now 20 different medications that effectively put the virus to sleep in people's bodies, she said. 
 
 "It's still a potentially deadly disease," Assistant District Attorney James Maxwell said, adding that he agreed with Pigott. "It's not always a death sentence, but it can be." ||||| Syracuse, NY - The District Attorney’s Office is pursuing a felony prosecution against a Syracuse man accused of infecting a consensual sexual partner with the HIV virus. 
 
 Terrance D. Williams, 22, was charged two weeks ago with a felony count of first-degree reckless endangerment. 
 
 He’s accused of recklessly acting with depraved indifference to human life and creating “a grave risk of death” to another person. 
 
 Specifically, he’s accused of engaging in acts of sex with the victim from July to November 2010, knowing that he had been diagnosed as HIV positive around Dec. 2, 2009. 
 
 Williams is accused of failing to disclose that to the victim who now has been diagnosed as HIV positive as of this past February, according to court papers. 
 
 The victim’s name is blacked out in court papers. 
 
 Those court papers also indicate Williams sent an Internet message to the victim sometime in late April in which he admitted he intentionally failed to reveal his HIV status to the victim. In that message, Williams also claimed he was guilt ridden and regretted his actions, according to the felony complaint. 
 
 Defense lawyer August Nordone said Williams has been freed on $10,000 bail and the case was adjourned until next March. 
 
 In the meantime, Nordone said he is investigating whether first-degree reckless endangerment is an appropriate charge against his client. 
 
 With all the advances in the medical treatment of HIV and AIDS since it was first identified, Nordone said he is looking into whether someone who is HIV positive who engages in consensual sex with another is actually creating “a grave risk of death” as required by the Penal Law for the felony reckless endangerment charge. 
 
 “It is my understanding the District Attorney’s office is considering indicting my client on a felony charge,” Nordone said Thursday. “But both sides are reviewing the facts and circumstances as to whether this is a felony charge.” 
 
 First Chief Assistant District Attorney Rick Trunfio today said his office will present the felony reckless endangerment case to a grand jury for consideration. That has been the standard charge considered in the few such cases handled in New York State, he said. 
 
 Both Nordone and Assistant District Attorney Geoffrey Ciereck, the case prosecutor, said they are looking back to see if there has been any similar case prosecuted in Onondaga County. 
 
 The Post-Standard archives shows the District Attorney’s Office contemplated filing attempted murder charges against Helen Cover, a Syracuse woman with AIDS who was arrested on a prostitution charge in January 1989. 
 
 Instead of that, the prosecution pursued a probation violation charge because Cover had been placed on probation two years earlier for an assault charge. 
 
 In March 1989, County Judge J. Kevin Mulroy sentenced Cover – who appeared in court wearing a gray ski mask to hide her face from news cameras - to 1 1/3 to four years in state prison for the probation violation. He specifically said he was sending her to prison for not addressing a drug problem and not for having AIDS or because of any fear she would go out and spread the disease. 
 
 After Cover said in an interview she believed Mulroy had a grudge against her because of her disease, Mulroy said the illness was a factor in his decision to keep the woman locked up because he “wasn’t going to run the risk of her giving a death sentence to someone else.” 
 
 Cover, 27, died 10 months later in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. 
 
 Trunfio said Thursday prosecution of such cases is rare, but he believes there has been at least one in Onondaga County during the tenure of District Attorney William Fitzpatrick. He could not recall the details, however. 
 
 The Williams case is similar to a case from earlier this year in which a Buffalo man was arrested on felony reckless endangerment charges for failing to report his AIDS statuts to a number of sexual partners. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless endangerment charges in July and was sentenced to one year in jail. 
 
 One of the most prominent such cases in New York also occurred in western New York with Nushawn Williams charged in the 1990s with infecting at least 13 women with HIV in the Jamestown area. He pleaded guilty in 1998 to statutory rape and reckless endangerment charges and was sentenced to serve four to 12 years in state prison. 
 
 The Attorney General’s Office initiated civil confinement proceedings last year to keep Nushawn Williams in custody after he completed his 12-year prison term. 
 

– In 2011, New York prosecutors charged a 22-year-old Syracuse man who had neglected to tell his sexual partner he had HIV and subsequently infected him with a felony. But two lower courts ruled the charge should be switched to a misdemeanor, and yesterday the New York State Court of Appeals upheld those decisions, agreeing Terrance Williams should face a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge instead, the AP reports. Although the court majority wrote that Williams' actions were "reckless, selfish, and reprehensible," they found he didn't show "depraved indifference"—a required element of a felony charge. One judge did dissent, writing that Williams lied more than once, showing "utter indifference" to his partner. Williams was found to be HIV positive in December 2009, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported in 2011. He then had sexual relations with the unnamed partner between July and November 2010; the victim was diagnosed as HIV positive in February 2011. Court papers cited in the Post-Standard say Williams sent a remorseful, "guilt-ridden" message to the victim in April 2011. Williams' appellate lawyer argued that the partner's risk of contracting HIV after four or five sexual encounters was "low" and the chances of dying from it "extraordinarily low" thanks to treatment advances. The assistant district attorney disagreed, saying, "It's still a potentially deadly disease. It's not always a death sentence, but it can be." If convicted of the misdemeanor, Williams could face a year in jail, as opposed to the seven the felony charge could have brought, the AP notes.