South Dakota: Fourth Person Positive in Felony HIV Case

A fourth person has tested positive for HIV as health officials in South Dakota trace the sexual partners of a Huron University basketball player from Chicago who is HIV positive and charged with not telling his girlfriend that he was infected. He is in jail facing 15 years in prison and a $15,000 fine for each of five felony counts.

Nikko Briteramos, 18, is accused of having five sexual trysts with a girlfriend of three weeks after he was told in late March that he had tested positive for HIV. He is the first person to be tried under a two-year old South Dakota law making it a felony to knowingly expose a person to HIV. Beadle County State's Attorney Michael Moore said county health officials personally informed Briteramos March 27 that he had the disease. Briteramos' infection was discovered when he donated blood at a Red Cross drive in February.

Briteramos has been denied a reduction of his $10,000 bail on the felony charges. "He's just devastated right now," his father, Disraeli Briteramos, 47, a salesman from Chicago, said after the hearing. "He's not a serial viral killer. He did not come here to this pristine community to spread this virus. He's just as much of a victim as everyone else. He's very frightened." The father, who took a bus from Chicago to attend the hearing, said his son had a clean bill of health when he enrolled last fall at Huron University. The son was awaiting further HIV test results when police and health officials took him into custody, his father said.

"He's a regular user of condoms, and we can't even really say for sure he didn't use condoms [with his girlfriend]," Disraeli Briteramos said. Asked if the girlfriend was aware his son had HIV, he said: "Did she know? No, she did not know."

Two other people in Beadle County tested positive for HIV late last week. The fourth case was outside Beadle County but "there is a clear connection to the Huron incident," said state Department of Health Secretary Doneen Hollingsworth. Still unclear was whether Briteramos had infected one or more of the others, or if he had been infected by one of them, Hollingsworth said. None of the four was Briteramos' girlfriend. The four who tested positive for HIV had more than 50 sexual partners among them, Moore said. No one else has been charged.

"Certainly the most unusual thing is the alleged criminal conduct," said Hollingsworth. "The nature of the case is troubling. These are very serious allegations." South Dakota is one of more than 30 states that have made intentionally exposing others to HIV illegal.

As sheriff's deputies led Briteramos out of the courtroom in handcuffs, his friends quietly followed him down the courthouse stairs, many of them choking back tears. One faculty member called after him in encouragement. "This is a campus where if somebody has a problem, there's probably a person standing right next to them saying, 'Come on, we can get through this,'" said interim university Chancellor Brad Smith, who attended the hearing. "I think you saw that today."

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