revoked Carriker's $5,600 bond and now he faces three counts of felony reckless conduct.Prosecutors must now prove that Carriker knew he had HIV during the alleged relationships and did not warn his partners he was infected.Carriker, a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Superior Court Judge Johnnie Caldwell Jr. "Criminal prosecution could undermine public health if it discourages testing."Carriker had been dating John Withrow for five months when he revealed to him in April 2004 that he had the virus that causes AIDS, according to incident reports.Citing a little-known statute that makes it a felony for not disclosing one's HIV status, a distraught Withrow was turned down by several reluctant attorneys before prosecutors in tight-knit suburban Fayette County, where Withrow lives, decided to press charges."The reason I came forward to file a complaint was to stop him from victimizing someone else," said Withrow, who said he has not yet tested positive for the virus.Carriker posted bond, but since then, two other men, both in Atlanta's Fulton County, have claimed Carriker had unprotected sex with them and failed to disclose his HIV status. "Eventually someone's going to get killed."Some activists argue that criminalizing HIV discourages people at risk from being tested and cripples prevention efforts."From a public health perspective, the most important thing is that both sexual partners, not just the HIV-positive one, take responsibility for preventing infection," said Joel Ginsberg, interim director of the San Francisco-based Gay & Lesbian Medical Association. It brings the state into the vortex of an ongoing legal debate that pits a growing public health crisis against the bounds of privacy.Prosecutors have dusted off a rarely used Georgia law to charge Carriker with felony reckless misconduct, which could keep him in prison for 10 years."It's like shooting bullets into the crowd," said Atlanta attorney Adam Jaffe, who is arguing a civil lawsuit against Carriker. Twice.Carriker's case is one of the first in Georgia prosecuted on charges of knowingly transmitting the HIV virus through consensual sex. And then, when Carriker was released on bond in March, he was arrested on similar charges in a nearby county.
Garry Wayne Carriker was a fourth-year medical student with a charming style that he worked to his advantage around the city's bustling gay scene.But just months after he would have graduated from Emory University Medical School, Carriker's career is on hold as he sits in jail, awaiting trial on sex-crime charges that have put Atlanta's gay community on edge.His crime? Police say the 26-year-old knew he had the HIV virus but went ahead with unprotected consensual sex with another man without warning him.