E-Paper
Transgender prostitute in Australia found guilty of infecting man with HIV
A transgender prostitute in Australia was convicted after she had unprotected sex on multiple occasions with a man who was later diagnosed HIV-positive.
An Australian jury on Friday convicted a transgender prostitute of causing grievous bodily harm by knowingly infecting a client with HIV.
Clayton James Palmer, who identifies as a woman and now goes by the name CJ Palmer, pleaded not guilty in the Western Australia District Court, arguing that she had been unaware that she was HIV-positive when she had unprotected sex with the client, who cannot be named.
She will be sentenced at a date yet to be set and faces a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Prosecutor Ben Stanwix told the court Palmer did not want to face reality and had been told by a nurse she was HIV-positive two months before she met the client through an online advertisement in November 2014.
They had unprotected sex on multiple occasions until August 2015, and she told him she was regularly tested for sexually transmitted diseases. The man was diagnosed HIV-positive in September 2015.
Palmer had argued he could have been infected by someone else.
