Hiv Carrier Gets 7-Year Prison Term

Kerry S. Thomas has been sentenced to a minimum of seven years in prison for failing to notify a sex partner that he has the virus that causes AIDS.

Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail on Monday imposed the maximum 15-year sentence with no possibility of parole until after the first seven are served.

Thomas, 32, was on parole after serving 19 months in prison in connection with the same charge when he had consensual sex last April with a 26-year-old Boise cab driver awaiting a sex-change operation to become a female. A blood test last year found the victim had not contracted the virus.

A five-woman, seven-man jury convicted Thomas, a former Boise State University basketball player, after a three-day trial.

In 1990, Thomas became the first person in Idaho charged with failing to notify a sex partner that he was HIV-positive. In that case, up to 12 southwestern Idaho women reported having sex with Thomas. He was charged in five of those reported instances, but the charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to statutory rape.